


catch me on a better day

by hart



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anal Sex, Angst with a Happy Ending, Drug Addiction, Drug Use, First Time, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Idiots in Love, M/M, Panic Attacks, Recovery, Service Top Richie Tozier, Slow Burn, Stress Baking, Thank God for Beverly Marsh
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-10
Updated: 2020-05-18
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:02:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 29,562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23578099
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hart/pseuds/hart
Summary: Richie's got almost sixty days sober under his belt. Richie's doing well. He's doing great, actually. He loves his support group. He feels the ground solidly under his feet for the first time in months.Which is why, when Eddie Kaspbrak turns up at said support group after ten years of absence from Richie's life, Richie doesn't just feel the carpet pulled out from underneath him. He feels his whole world sway, like being drunk after a long time.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 31
Kudos: 142





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> [me, crawling out of a hole in the ground and into this fandom a year late]: hey, want this fever dream?
> 
> this fic is set somewhere between the first and second films, placing them in their early 30s. i'm not going to cover any encounters with pennywise, so whether this is an au where the evil clown never happened or not is up to you. it's gonna obviously tackle drugs and addiction, and whilst this is something i've had personal experience with, if there's anything i'm getting glaringly wrong or approaching in a way that doesn't feel right, let me know! triggers for addiction ahead, but warning for tooth-rotting fluff in the future, too.

It starts with one meeting. Or rather, Richie guesses, it picks back up with one. 

He thumbs the chip in his pocket on the way there. Sixty days. It’s pretty impressive, considering he’s offered at least one glass every week. It’s not the fault of the various venue staff, and he _does_ feel bad every time their faces fall, like _shit, sorry._ But every time he smiles, like _it’s_ _fine_ , it’s not like he’s particularly public with it. 

If his sixty days is give or take a few, at the beginning, well. What his sponsor doesn’t know won’t hurt him. 

So he gets to the meeting, somewhere around fifty-two days sober under his belt, and he feels… good, actually. Really good. He’s been working fucking hard on himself, lately. He’s been getting more shows. He’s been _remembering_ doing them. Sure, without a stiff drink, he’s throwing up nerves before going onstage most nights. But he’s working the shaky charm into his act- and he’s _funny_. His therapist has been helping him project his humour outwards, instead of using it to deflect, and people love it. It’s self-deprecating in a way that doesn’t scream _help me_ . It’s dry and sarcastic in a way that _sells_. So Richie joins the circle at his substance abuse support group, feeling good. Really good. 

“We’ve got a new member with us tonight. Why don’t you introduce yourself?”

Richie looks up. Richie stares.

The volunteer in charge tonight nudges the man next to her. He’s looking down at his hands, bitten nails and bird-like wrists, before jerking his head up with a jolt, like he wasn’t paying attention. He’s thinner than when Richie last saw him- a _lot_ thinner- and his eyes, that Richie remembers being shiny as all hell, are wide and kind of dulled. They keep flitting around the circle nervously, but they’re unmistakable. He’s unmistakable. When those eyes land directly on Richie’s they grow wider still, and he swallows, voice that Richie would recognise in a fever dream stammering out;

“Hi, uh. I’m Eddie.”

•

Maybe running out isn’t the most dignified thing Richie could have done. He doesn’t know what _would_ have been a more dignified thing to do- his brain can’t seem to catch up with him fast enough to form any normal response. Whatever that might be. He keeps staring, mouth opening and closing like a fish, as Eddie- Eddie, _Eddie-_ clears his throat and tells the circle why he’s there. Richie catches fragments, mind reeling too much to really listen. Divorce, which Richie thinks makes sense, and makes some foreign part of his chest lurch. He pushes it down. Prescription pills, which also makes sense, in a sad way. The one that snaps Richie out of his daze like someone’s slipped ice down his collar- heroin. 

It’s a common progression, Richie knows, from pills to a needle. He’s seen it happen, and it’s not like Richie’s never touched a rig, but he got out real fast. But the idea of Eddie, soft-faced and endless energy, shooting up somewhere dirty, surrounded by old cans and used sharps, well. That’s when Richie runs.

Of course, he doesn’t actually _run_ , because that would make him look as insane as he feels. Instead, he excuses himself with something mumbled about getting a phone call, pulling his cell out of his pocket and dialling Bev’s number before he’s hit the door. He holds the phone between his ear and his shoulder and lights a cigarette, crumpling against the wall outside. It’s May, and the hot L.A. sun makes it impossible to breathe.

“Richie? Are you okay?”

Bev’s voice immediately eases his trembling a little. Enough. Richie takes a deep drag of his cigarette, exhales, rubs his eyes behind his glasses.

“Eddie,” is all he can say, and it comes out in one breath. 

“Oh, shit,” Bev says. It’s not quite what Richie expected.

“‘Oh shit’?” he says. “Yeah _‘oh shit’_ , Bev, he’s at my fucking support group. My _substance abuse_ support group. Jesus, fuck-”

“Hey, Richie, breathe,” Bev says, and he does. He tries. “Jesus, I didn’t know he was still in L.A.” 

Richie’s gut twists.

“You _knew?”_

“I mean- I heard. He rang,” Bev stumbles on her words, and it sounds strange to hear her back-tracking, normally so calm. 

“He fucking _what?”_ Richie feels his shaking pick up again, head spinning. 

“Listen, he didn’t know anyone in the city. He came just after his divorce, I saw him once when he arrived, and I’ve not spoken to him since. It was over a year ago, Richie. I figured he’d moved back up North.”

“Why didn’t he ring me?” 

“Richie,” Bev says, stern, and he can picture her face, eyebrow raised. “You know.”

“Yeah, I know,” Richie sighs. He takes a few more drags of his cigarette, hearing Bev light her own. 

“What’s he doing in your group, Richie?” she asks eventually, slowly, like she’s scared of the answer. Richie doesn’t blame her.

“You know I can’t tell you that, Bev,” he says. It comes out heavy, because _fuck_ , does he want to. “Fuck. A thousand fucking rehabs in L.A.” 

He doesn’t say what he’s thinking. Doesn’t say why _this_ one, why _mine_ , because that’s kind of bitchy, and from the look on Eddie’s face, Richie guesses he was thinking the same thing, anyway. 

“You can’t…” Bev breaks off, chews on her words. “You can’t say it’s a- I don’t know- conflict of interest, or something?”

Richie shakes his head. 

“You can’t just ask someone to move support groups because-” 

Because what? Because you haven’t seen someone in twenty years? Except that one time, ten years ago, where he went to one of your shows, and you got black-out wasted and said some _really_ _dumb_ _shit_ you both knew, and both knew you didn’t fucking talk about? Richie sucks the last dregs of life out of his cigarette. 

“You just can’t, Bev.”

“Right,” she says, pauses, then- “Well shit, Richie.”

Richie laughs, a short, humourless huff out of his nostrils.

“Yeah.”

“Talk to your sponsor?” Bev says, in that way that she has; that way that’s so concerned, yet so unpatronising. It’s a line that she’s always known how to toe, and Richie loves her so much for it.

“You bet,” he says. 

He tells her he loves her and hangs up, standing and taking a deep breath. He feels like an asshole, all of a sudden. Phones went away at meetings, because everyone gets to say their two cents whilst everyone else listens, and even if Richie couldn’t have stomached hearing Eddie talk, he’s missed at least three other people by now. He crushes the burnt-out filter he was still holding into the wall, swallowing a wave of nausea and a little bit of pride, turning back towards the meeting room. 

When he rejoins the circle, Eddie’s gone.

•

Richie spends the evening Googling _Eddie Kaspbrak_. He knows he probably shouldn’t, but there’s not a whole lot, anyway. He’s not a doctor, like everyone thought he might end up. Richie feels a pang of guilt when his mind helpfully supplies _just as well_ . His divorce is in some Staten Island local paper. Nearly two years ago. No kids, no alimony. No-fault status, but the words _substance issues_ catch Richie’s eye and he closes his laptop, that pang of guilt tugging harder. It feels like he’s reading someone’s diary without their permission. It feels like you shouldn’t _know_ the person you’re Googling when you Google someone. Richie wonders, for a split second, if he still knows Eddie. 

“Jesus,” he moans at that thought, rolling out from his position on the couch and reaching for his cigarettes. They’re sat, conveniently, underneath his cat, as are all things cat-owners find themselves needing.

“Shift it, Cat,” he says, and Cat mewls at him in annoyance. He moves, anyway, and Richie drapes himself over the balcony as he lights a cigarette. His fingers twitch restlessly. He sucks it down quickly, thinks about lighting another one, but instead finds himself walking back inside and reaching for an old photo album. It’s full of pictures of Derry. Full of pictures of Eddie. Yellowing film prints and polaroids, blurred pictures of all of them in golden dog days of summer, lying on the grass, paddling in the rocky streams. Bill and Beverly kissing in the background with Mike and Richie pulling puke faces in front of them. Ben posing with small plastic _New Kids On The Block_ figures. Eddie falling off his bike. Eddie with ice-cream on his face. Richie with Eddie pinned to the floor, marker in hand, having just drawn a dick on Eddie’s cast on his broken arm. Eddie’s scowling at the camera, Richie’s grinning like fireworks on the Fourth. 

Richie groans, taking off his glasses and casting the album aside. He goes for his cigarettes again, before changing his mind and reaching into the drawer in his coffee table, pulling out his weed. It’s not a _problem_ he’s ever had. Still. He tries to stay away from it, most of the time, but he figures that today definitely constitutes an excuse. He rolls a joint and lies on the carpet near the open balcony doors as he lights it, closing his eyes. He smokes it down to the roach without moving from his position, lazily stretching out an arm and picking up a photograph that’s escaped the album. It’s just him, squinting underneath those huge, thick glasses into the sun. He’s got a grin on his face, and what looks like an old, rusted tin in his hand. Seconds after Bill took it, he’d lobbed the tin at Eddie’s head. He remembers. 

Richie drops the photo and finds his phone, head full of cotton wool, somewhere in the clouds above his apartment. 

“Bev,” he says when she picks up. “Should I get new glasses?”

•

Richie’s weeks don’t run Monday to Sunday, like other people’s do. He has sporadic gigs, normally a couple a week on no particular day. He’s learned to adapt without a typical schedule. Mornings: wake up, breakfast, gym, maybe, if he can be bothered. He likes to bake some afternoons, and he’s pretty fucking good at it. He spends an hour a day in the Overlook Café, a community-run sober living hangout downtown that stays open late. He’ll go there after lunch to write material for his shows, sometimes pages and pages over pour-over coffees. Sometimes nothing, gnawing on pens and his nails, fingers twitching for some kind of inspiration, some kind of _something_. The only structured commitment he has is Support Group Thursdays. And so his weeks go from Thursday to Thursday.

The rest of that week- _his_ week- goes by like someone else is living it. He only has one show, which he’s thankful for. It’s a small gig, which he’s also thankful for. It rolls around on Wednesday, and Richie peaks out into the crowd from behind the curtain, past the support act. There can’t be more than seventy people there, seated around low-lit tables for two. They’re his favourite kinds of gigs, still. The local ones; the ones where the same people come back, and back, and back. 

Despite all this, his hands shake. 

He takes a sip from his water, dribbling a little down his front, grateful that no one can see him tucked backstage. He shuffles his notes, reads over them once, twice, but the words blur together and his hands are jostling the pages too much. He takes another sip of his water and wishes, _wishes_ , for the first time in a while, that it was something stronger. 

“Fuck.”

Richie tears away from the backstage area, elbowing his way out of the fire exit door and lighting a cigarette. He drags his phone from his pocket, and dials his sponsor. 

“Richie,” he says, and his voice is gently worried. “Are you alright? Don’t you have a show tonight?”

“Yeah, I-” Richie pinches the bridge of his nose. “I’m having an issue.” 

“Alright. Have you had a drink?”

“No, I haven’t had a fucking drink,” he snaps. That guilt, again. “Sorry. Shit, sorry. I haven’t, I promise. But I-” he sucks in a breath past gritted teeth. Admitting it is always hard. “I want to. I really fucking want to.” 

“Alright,” his sponsor says again. Richie likes him, he really does, would be in a ditch without him, but he wishes that he had that quality Bev has. But this isn’t Bev’s job. “Do you know what’s making you want a drink?

Richie thinks of big, brown eyes. 

“Yeah.” His voice is strangled. 

“Can you tell me about it?”

Richie drags on his cigarette. He thinks of bird-like wrists that he could snap in one hand. 

“It’s okay. It doesn’t matter, I’m fine.”

“Richie,” his sponsor says, low and serious. 

“Honestly, it’s okay. I’m sorry for ringing late.” 

“Richie, do you feel unsafe?” 

Richie thinks about this, for a minute. He feels rockier than he has in over a month. He finishes his cigarette and shoves his hand into his pocket, thumbs his sixty day coin, pushes it into the meat of his thigh through the fabric of his jeans until it hurts. He takes a deep breath. This club _knows_ him. No one’s going to offer him a drink. There’s seventy people in the audience. The lights are low, and it’s intimate. These kinds of gigs are where he feels _safest_. It’s taken a long time for him to be able to feel that way. 

“No,” he says, and his voice sounds steadier, his breathing comes easier. “I’m safe. Really. Thank you.” 

“You ring me if that changes, Richie. It’s never too late to ring, alright?”

“Alright,” Richie says, hanging up and turning his face to the sky, thanking whatever’s up there for his support system. 

The gig isn’t awful. It could be better, but he survives.

•

The next morning he tries to catch Bev for a coffee, but she’s _brunching_. Richie grimaces at the sheer _California_ of it, remembers he’s a stand-up comedian with a cat named _Cat_ , and decides not to chastise her too much. So he puts on _Jagged Little Pill_ and spends his day baking. 

He bakes an apple cake, first. Vegan, because this is L.A., and he’ll take it along to the Overlook tomorrow. He takes his time, sifting cinnamon and ground cloves in with the flour, where he’d normally chuck them in last minute. He chops up a third of a cooking apple into perfect, tiny cubes, folds them into the cake mix, finally cutting the last third into slices so thin he can see through them, arranging them on top in a delicate whirl of fruit and sliding it into the oven. By the time he’s finished rolling out pastry dough for blueberry pie, his whole apartment smells of apple and cinnamon. He blind-bakes his pie crust and fills it with deep purple berries and compôte, constructing a lattice and laying it on top. Then, his cake comes out of the oven. He has spare pastry left-over, Richie realises, so he makes a couple custard tarts with it, one for him and one for Bev. Before he knows it, it’s 4pm. He’s _surrounded_ by baked goods, and he suddenly remembers what he’s been distracting himself from all day. 

Support group is in an hour. A thick lump rises in his throat, followed by a stab of anger. He _likes_ his support group. It’s _supportive_. He shouldn’t feel apprehensive about going, it’s _his_ thing, his _one_ _thing_. He wants someone in particular to be angry at, but there’s no one, and he feels hollow with it. 

So he puts his pie on a cooling rack, and starts to walk to the meeting. 

•

Richie doesn’t know if he’s more surprised that Eddie’s there than he would be if he hadn’t showed. Some ugly part in Richie almost wishes that he hadn’t, but looking at him now, those huge eyes fixed on his shoes, Richie can’t find the energy to be angry at anyone. Not even at himself. 

Richie talks for his five minutes, about his show, about ringing his sponsor. About baking a pâtisserie’s worth in his kitchen that afternoon. He listens, vaguely, to tonight’s circle leader congratulate him on his continued abstinence. He answers, absently, when she asks him what his goals for the next fortnight are. He watches Eddie.

He watches Eddie. He looks… fragile. He seems, at first glance, kind of put-together. He’s clean shaven, and his hair is longer than Richie’s ever seen it, falling in shaggy swoops tucked behind his ears. His jeans are ironed, and there’s the collar of a pressed shirt poking out from the top of his sweater, which looks like it might have been expensive, real wool. But the L.A. heat is swelling thicker every day. Everyone else is in shirts or t-shirts. Richie swallows around his throat as he watches Eddie shiver. He knows he’s staring, but he can’t tear his eyes from the way the sweater seems to hang looser on Eddie the longer he looks. The sleeves are pulled down over his hands. He’s tugging at dangling threads the way he used to when they were fourteen, when he’d stand in front of his mother, bumbling through excuses for being back so late, as Richie and the others giggled in the doorway. Richie bites the inside of his cheek against the guilt. It’s becoming a regular thing. 

He pulls his gaze up from Eddie’s hands to his face, and his breath catches as he meets his eyes. _Shit_. Before Richie can flush with shame for staring, Eddie quickly looks somewhere past Richie’s left ear. 

By the time they’re wrapping up, Richie’s taken in enough of his appearance, driven himself half-mad spotting one thing after another. It’s a well-constructed illusion, he’ll give him that. To the untrained eye, Eddie might look tired, sure. Hungry, definitely. Not much more than the masses of wannabe actors and overworked models that fill the streets of L.A. every day. But Richie’s an addict, too, and he can’t stop himself from finding the cracks in Eddie’s lips, the red rimming his eyes. The punctures in the veins of his hands, when he reaches up to swipe a hair from his face. You go there when the veins in your arms collapse. Richie knows. 

By the end of the meeting, Richie’s made his decision. Richie made his decision when Eddie first walked in here, really. There was only one choice. 

People file out, Richie presses his sixty day coin into his thigh, and steadies his hands. 

Eddie’s already left, and Richie finds him outside, like he’s waiting. He pulls his cigarettes out of his jacket and lights one, leaning back against the wall next to Eddie, taking a drag. Richie turns his head and looks at him. Eddie’s jaw clenches minutely. Richie takes another drag of his cigarette, inhale, exhale, and waits. 

Finally, Eddie looks back. 

“Hey, stranger,” Richie says. 

Something close to a smile passes Eddie’s face.

“Hey.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title is from 'fix me' by garbage, and you can listen to this fic playlist [here](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3pjw3MWCtujbCjRJk98lai)!
> 
> thank you so much for my best friend, freddie, for beta'ing, giving me an endless fountain of reddie headcanons, including richie's extensive music collection, talking to me for hours about these two idiots, and generally being the godparent of this fic. 
> 
> jagged little pill is by alanis morissette. richie's cat is named 'cat' after the cat in breakfast at tiffany's. he said it's because they're in L.A., and it's old hollywood. bev says it's because he wants to be audrey hepburn, deep down.
> 
> i'm going to update roughly once a week, because what else am i going to do in a global pandemic?


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> speedy update because this fic is all i've been able to think about? maybe so. 
> 
> can we all raise a glass to beverly marsh, please? she puts up with so much.

Richie takes Eddie to the Overlook. 

By the time they get there it’s just past seven-thirty, and the sun hangs low and milky in the sky. Eddie’s still clinging to his sweater in a way that fills Richie with unease, but he doesn’t mention it. He orders a jasmine tea, because he’ll be up all night if he has a coffee right now, plus, he’s not sure what Eddie’s whole stance on, like, _stimulants_ is. 

“This is, like, an alcohol free bar, right?” Eddie says, as they find a quiet corner to sit down. 

“Yeah, amongst other things,” says Richie. 

“Damn,” Eddie says with a nervous laugh. Richie frowns.

“What, you still drinking?”

Eddie shifts in his seat. 

“Yeah. You know. Not really my whole-” he waves his hands haphazardly, “- you know.” 

Richie nods, grinds his teeth. Eddie doesn’t order anything, but Richie’s tea comes with two cups, so he pours into both. Just in case. 

“So, hey,” Eddie leans forwards, slapping Richie on the knee in such a sudden display of energy it makes him jump. “What have you been doing, man? Fuck, like, sixty days? That’s what you said back there? That’s fuckin’ impressive!”

“Shit, yeah, I guess,” Richie winces at Eddie’s voice; sentences tumbling out fast and jumbled. It feels familiar in a way that a funhouse mirror reflection feels. Off. 

“You still doin’ the whole stand-up thing? Anything, uh, anything new?”

“Yeah, a couple gigs a week, actually. Got a cat.” 

“Shit, what’s it called?”

“Uh. Cat.”

Eddie nods like it’s the most interesting shit in the world, and Richie feels just about ready to implode. 

“So- fuck, Eds. What _happened_?” the words bypass his brain and come falling out of his mouth without Richie’s permission, but once they’re out, he can’t stop. “Bev says you came here after your divorce, what, two years ago? How long you been-” he stops, bites his tongue. Reconsiders. “Have you been in L.A. this whole time?”

Eddie looks down at his mug of tea. He runs his forefinger around the rim a couple of times. 

“Yeah, man,” he starts. Circles the mug again once, twice. “You know, Myra, she was a real hardass.”

Richie doesn’t know. He never met her. 

“Sure, dude,” he says. 

Eddie looks up from his mug.

“Yeah, you know. She was on my back a lot, so. Amongst other things. You know, New York is great, but. The divorce didn’t go _super_ well.” 

“Yeah, no shit,” Richie says.

There’s a horrible moment where Eddie catches his eyes, and Richie thinks that was a _dick_ thing to say, he’s _fucked_ _it_. But then Eddie starts laughing, and it sounds _real_ , and he leans back in his chair, crosses his legs, _relaxes_. 

“Fuck you, Trashmouth,” he says, and there’s no malice in it. “You got your share of fuck-ups, too. Or did I dream you back in that meeting?” 

It would hurt, from anyone but Eddie. Instead, Richie feels his chest loosen, lungs taking in air easy, like nothing’s changed. _Easy_. 

“Yeah, fuckin’, _about_ that. Couldn’t find another group? You _had_ to follow me to mine?”

“Right, I’ve been stalking which rehabs you’re hopping to and from. Thought it would be an _ideal_ place to catch up.” 

“Hey, fuck you, I’ve been to _one_ rehab. And I’m pretty stalkable.”

“You’re a fucking asshole, is what you are. Not changed, huh?.” 

Richie smiles, but it’s kind of strained. It’s not like he can say the same about Eddie. 

“Yeah, well,” he says instead. “How many days, then? Have you got?” 

“Eh, I’m just,” Eddie flicks wrist around again, “figuring some shit out.”

It’s an answer to a different question, but Richie doesn’t press it. He remembers his sixty days; closer to fifty-seven. It’s hard to talk about, near the beginning. 

“Hey, look,” he pulls out a pen and starts scrawling his number on a napkin. “Take this. Me and Bev, we’re doing dinner. Sunday. I’m sure she’d like to see that you’re, like, alive.”

Eddie laughs a short puff of breath, picking up the napkin and holding it cautiously between two fingers. Richie thinks, maybe, he’s got it wrong. But then Eddie’s pulling out his phone, tapping in the digits, and Richie’s pocket buzzes a second later. Eddie discards the napkin and wipes his fingers on his jeans. Richie smiles, like maybe he’s not changed _so_ much, actually. 

He drags his phone from his jacket and sees the unopened message.

 **UNKNOWN NUMBER:  
(7:57 PM)  
** **that sounds nice.**

•

The next morning, Richie finally gets Bev for a coffee. Or rather, Bev drops in on Richie whilst he’s working his volunteer shift at the Overlook. He’s a shitty barista, and he’ll admit that maybe his customer service skills leave a bit to be desired. Okay, a lot. But it’s a condition of his treatment, and he doesn’t _totally_ hate it. 

Bev laughs at the face of a terrified customer- a young girl- as Richie rolls his eyes at her request of almond milk. He taps the sign next to the till.

“We only have _oat_ or _soy_ ,” he says each option real slow, which is maybe a bit harsh, but the sign is _right_ there. The girl accepts oat quickly, probably to get out of the range of Richie’s glare. 

“What did she ever do to you?” Bev asks, attempting to hide her grin in her cappuccino. His glare turns on her, next, and she holds her hands up in surrender. “Alright! Hey, how was Eddie?”

Richie puts down the cloth he’s picked up to clean the steaming wand, and leans against the counter. How _was_ Eddie?

“Skinny,” is what he says, at a loss for anything else. 

Bev hums in contemplation. 

“Sober?” she asks tentatively. 

Richie pinches the bridge of his nose underneath his glasses. 

“I don’t…” he sighs, closes his eyes for a second. He’s got a headache coming. “I don’t think so.” 

“Shit,” Bev says. She takes a sip of her coffee. “Drink?”

“Bev, you know I can’t-” 

“Yeah, yeah, I know. What if I guess?”

“This isn’t a fucking game, Bev,” Richie snaps. 

“Jesus, I know that, Richie. It’s just- he’s my friend too.”

Richie bites the inside of his cheek. It feels like a shitty thing either way, to tell her or to not tell her. 

“Alright. Fine. You get five guesses, and if you don’t get it I won’t tell you,” he says, and after a beat, adds; “and you’re buying me a pack of cigarettes. For compromising my morality.”

“What morality?”

“ _Bev_.”

“Alright, you’re right,” Bev steels her face into something more serious, straightening her back. “So. Not drink?”

Richie raises his eyebrows. Like; _worse_. 

“Pills?” 

Richie raises his eyebrows. _Worse_. 

“Coke?” Bev asks, after a nervous pause, voice dipping, and Richie raises his eyebrows. “Fuck, I don’t…” she chews her lip, before her face goes slack. “Not dope. Right? Richie?”

Richie pulls a face, lips pursed to one side. Bev goes pale. 

“You’re joking, right?”

“Funny joke,” Richie deadpans. “ _Hilarious_. I’m working it into Tuesday’s show, actually.” 

“Fuck. _Eddie_?”

“Yeah, Bev, who fuckin’ else have we been talking about?” Richie says. His chest feels hollowed out, like someone’s gone at his insides with a spoon. Bev doesn’t say anything for a while, staring into her coffee. 

“You think he’s still using.”

It’s not really a question, but Richie thinks hard on it anyway. Eddie hadn’t seemed _completely_ strung out. But something in those big eyes didn’t seem _normal_. He says as much to Bev, turning back to the coffee machine and picking up the cloth again, giving his now-shaking hands something to do. 

“Do you think he’s, like. Casually using? Can you do that?” 

Richie doesn’t answer. He doesn’t need to. 

•

Richie spends his Sunday baking, and smoking weed. The irony isn’t lost on him. Nor is the fact that he’s had three joints by 4pm, which is considerably more than he’s had over the whole of the last month. But he’s fucking _nervous_ , man. Bev is coming over at six, early, for moral support, and to supply what he’s promised will be a ‘fuck-you-sideways chilli’. Richie shudders slightly at the thought of Bev’s cooking. Which sounds cunty, but _seriously_. The last time she cooked, he was sat on the toilet for half the next day. Richie seeks a small solace in that there’s apparently no meat, this time. 

Eddie’s coming at six. Richie keeps looking at his phone, the last message fractured underneath the spider-web cracks on his screen, but clear enough:

**EDDIE KASPBRAK:**   
**(2:05 PM)**   
**see you then T.M.**

Trashmouth. It feels like wearing an old blanket. Warm, still kind of smells like home. But the longer it sits against your skin it starts to itch, like there’s something wrong with it. Like the blanket has holes in, and then, fuck, a couple live moths. And the blanket’s on heroin. 

Fuck. Richie needs to stop smoking. 

He pulls himself together. Has a shower, shaves, feeds Cat, digs out some aftershave that has a brand on the front, and not just some shit like _old pine._ He spends far too long picking out a shirt- settling on a pale teal one with scattered shapes of pink, yellow, and blue. It’s sort of gaudy, and he knows Bev hates it. He thinks, maybe, that’s part of the reason he loves it so much. If nothing else, it’ll get at least one smile out of everyone tonight. By the time he’s wrangled his hair into a vaguely acceptable shape, it’s five-thirty, and his spiced pear tart in the oven has filled the apartment with a smoky aroma. A _very_ smoky aroma. Richie throws his hairbrush down on the bed and dives for the oven, flinging open the door and immediately spluttering as thick, grey plumes render his glasses useless. 

“Oh, _Jesus_ Christ!”

He wrenches the tart out without gloves, and nearly throws it on the floor, managing to launch it onto the counter just short of a serious pastry disaster or third-degree burns. Cat mewls hopefully as a couple bits of crust break off and go flying. Richie swipes his glasses off his face, dragging them along his jeans to rid them of smoke residue, which, _shit_. Was not smart, because now he has to change his fucking jeans. He shoves them back on his face and inspects the damage. The tart is, thank _fuck_ , salvagable. It’s… black, sure. But it’s mostly browned sugar, and he can pull that off as a deliberate char. Probably. 

“Hey, are you having a fucking bonfire in there?”

Richie groans, straightening up and pushing his hair back into place. He can feel it’s already escaped his herculean efforts of taming it. He goes to the door and unlatches it, allowing Bev to invite herself in as he immediately scurries back to his room to change his pants and examine his reflection. It could be worse. Somehow. Maybe.

“Your pie’s burnt,” Bev helpfully calls out. 

“It’s a _tart_ , and it’s _deliberate_ _char!_ ” he yells back. 

When he walks back into his kitchen Bev’s already sliding her chilli into the oven to heat through. Richie strides past her and flings himself onto a chair on his balcony, lighting up a cigarette as she moves to join him.

“What?”

Bev cocks an eyebrow and crosses her legs. Richie rolls his eyes. 

“ _What_ , Bev-er-ly?”

Bev laughs, which pisses Richie off a bit. Only a little. 

“How are you feeling? Other than the whole, setting your tart on fire?”

“You’ll be the next one,” Richie growls at her, but he doesn’t mean it. He heaves a sigh, pushing a hand through his hair, probably further fucking it up, but he’s past caring. “I don’t know, Bev, fuck. I want… I want to see him again. I mean, I’m glad I have. But, _Jesus_.”

“Yeah, I know,” she says, reaching her hand across the little table between them. Richie takes it gratefully. He has another drag of his cigarette before resting his forehead against their intertwined hands, closing his eyes, staying there for a moment. Kind of wishing he could stay there forever. But after a couple of minutes he feels Bev’s hand pushing a strand of his hair back before she taps him lightly on the shoulder.

“Come on. He’ll be here soon, and my chilli’s gonna be ready.”

“Oh, Jesus,” Richie whines. “Like I can’t feel any worse.” 

•

At the start it’s… kind of awful. 

Bev visibly stiffens next to Richie when Eddie arrives, which makes all of them feel pretty uncomfortable at first. Richie doesn’t blame her, though. Eddie _looks_ jarring. He’s lost the sweater, the creeping summer finally getting to him, maybe. But he’s wearing a thick twill shirt that’s doing a far worse job of disguising his tiny frame. He’s always been little. Not like Richie, who hit 6’1 when he was fifteen. He’d spent that summer in denial of being so fucking huge, jeans coming up to his shins, until he eventually realised that looked more ridiculous than just _being_ a giant. Richie used to semi-affectionately call Eddie _half-pint_ , and he’s still not quite a full pint as an adult. But he’s never seen him look _so_ small. He’s drawn into himself, and that _shirt_ \- it _drapes_. Open at the collar, just enough to see bones pressing against the inside of his skin. 

Richie swallows, and kicks Bev when he realises she’s still got her mouth hanging open. It seems to knock her into action.

“Eddie!” she says, face relaxing into a big, warm smile as she steps forwards and envelops Eddie into a tight hug. Richie envies her ability to put on a front so fast. He supposes he’s never needed it as badly as she did. Or as badly as she used to. 

The evening goes smoother, after that. Bev’s chilli is actually a hit, and the burnt bits of the pear tart add a kind of caramelised element that Richie thinks he might try to incorporate next time. With a bit of tweaking. Cat crawls over to sit on Eddie’s feet under the table, and Richie has a minor panic when he remembers that Eddie’s throat might, like. Fucking close up, or something.

“Oh, nah, I’m good with pets,” he says, when Richie says as much. 

“I thought you weren’t allowed any ‘cos you’d, like, fucking die?” 

“Nah. Mom just told me that ‘cos she didn’t like ‘em,” Eddie says, which puts a sour taste in Richie’s mouth. 

“Jesus.”

Eddie seems not to hear Richie, instead regarding Cat with curiosity. He reaches down and scratches between his ears.

“Does he want my food?” he asks, looking up at Richie when Cat starts to claw at his leg.

“Probably. He’s a _greedy_ bitch. Don’t give him any, though- he puts on weight faster than your mom.” 

“Not anymore,” Eddie says, and Richie blinks. “Yeah, uh. She died, like, four? Years ago? Hadn’t seen her in a while, though, ya know.”

“Oh, Eddie, I’m sorry,” Bev says, and Eddie just shrugs.

Richie wants to say _good_ , but he doesn’t.

“Bev, what are you doing, anyway?” Eddie changes the topic swiftly, waving his fork around, a fat slice of pear speared on the prongs. He’s doing that a lot. Richie thinks it’s to distract from the fact that he’s barely _eating_ his food. 

“I’m designing,” Bev says between mouthfuls. “Clothes.”

“No shit,” Eddie says. “And you’re still wearing that shirt?”

Bev feigns an offended gasp and flicks a flake of pastry across the table at him. Eddie holds his napkin up like a white flag. 

“ _My_ shirt?” Bev says, pointing to Richie. “What about _that_ thing?”

“You _hag_ , this is a good shirt,” Richie says, secretly pleased. He _knew_ it was a good choice. “Anyway, you’re not telling him the best thing.” 

Eddie sits back in his chair, expression open with intrigue, and Bev actually sort of blushes. 

“I, uh. I’ve got a charity. Set one up, I mean. Working with people coming from domestic abuse. Women, mostly, but we get a couple guys. Kind of like a union- we have four apartment blocks across L.A. Take people in, out of that situation, you know. Set them up with the tools to start over.”

“Wow,” Eddie says seriously. “That’s amazing, Bev, fuck.”

Richie looks at her as she shrugs, always so fucking modest. He’s beaming as she’s talking. He’s _so_ proud of her. 

The weed finds its way out of Richie’s coffee table after they’ve eaten. Richie’s a bit hesitant at first, eyes flitting to Eddie, but he’s not met with any indication that it's a _terrible_ idea. In fact, Eddie raises an eyebrow and looks at the stuff like he’s never seen it before.

“I dunno, man,” he says. “Smoking’s pretty bad for you, you know?” 

Richie thinks about needles before he can stop himself. The irony cuts, just a little bit.

“Nah, your mom made that one up, too,” he says, and Eddie laughs. “Hey, if you don’t wanna then you don’t wanna. But this is medical grade shit. It’s harmless.”

 _Harmless_ might be a bit of an overstatement, and maybe it’s a dick move on Richie’s part to offer any at all. But Richie kind of _really_ wants some, now. People say weed is a gateway drug, but Richie’s always felt like it’s been on the exit side of that gate. He sure as hell knows _he_ wouldn’t have got off the bottle without it. Either way, the word _medical_ sees Eddie relax a little, and he pulls a face like he’s processing, and relents. Before long, they’re sitting on the floor passing a joint between the three of them, photographs strewn on the carpet in front of their legs. 

“Oh shit,” Eddie says, holding up a polaroid. “I remember this. Mike tried to give you a haircut, Bev.”

Bev takes the photo from him and squints at it, before bursting out laughing.

“Oh, Jesus,” she says. “I do _not_ remember that, that’s fucking awful.”

“Do you remember, fuck,” Eddie flops down onto his back, no longer looking at the pictures. “Do you remember when you found that dog-” his hand falls out and lands on Richie’s shin, and Richie’s heart jumps into his throat. Eddie carries on, unaware. “That fuckin’ puppy. Down near the quarry. And you- you thought it was, like, a fuckin’ stray, or some shit. And it was Miss Haggards.” 

Richie leans back against Bev, frowning in concentration. 

“She thought I was gonna sell it?” he says with uncertainty, the memory coming through warped in a haze of time passed and California weed. 

“Yeah! Crazy bitch.” 

Richie laughs as Bev maneuvers herself out from underneath him, wandering towards the bathroom. When Richie looks up, Eddie’s watching her go with a strange look. He sits up on one elbow, voice low.

“Hey, man, are you two, like. A thing?”

Richie’s brain almost short-circuits. It’s such an absurd question to him, to the point where it takes him a whole minute to kick his gears into working order enough to answer. 

“Jesus, no,” he says. “Me and Bev? Are you fucking insane?”

Eddie shrugs, something flashing over his face so quickly Richie almost doesn’t catch it. He thinks that, maybe, it looked a bit like relief. But that’s a ridiculous thought that he can’t find the beginning of, so he pushes it down, putting it down to being stoned. 

“You’re pretty touchy-feely with her, man, I dunno.” 

Richie frowns. He hasn’t really thought about how he and Bev look to other people, but he supposes he can see Eddie’s angle. But there’s something about Bev that just makes _sense_ to be close to her, all the time. Richie’s so attached to her. Probably more than he’s attached to anyone else. 

“So- what, you don’t hug your friends?” he asks after a minute. 

Eddie sort of visibly shudders at that. Before Richie can think too hard about it, Bev waltzes back in, and as if on cue she takes Richie’s shoulders and pulls him into the position they were in before; her back against the couch and his back half-against her front. 

“Hey, look at this one,” she reaches in front of Richie and picks up a lone photograph. Eddie moves closer to look. 

It’s just the three of them, taken the year of Richie’s epic growth spurt. Eddie’s clinging to Bev’s shoulders, legs wrapped around her waist, with her knuckles white from holding onto the insides of his knees in a piggy-back. They look on the brink of collapse. Richie’s face is peaking over Eddie’s shoulder, tall enough to peer over both of them, gigantic glasses skewed. One of his hands is throwing up two fingers in a bunny-sign above Eddie’s head. All three of them are grinning ear-to-ear at whoever’s taking the picture. Richie thinks it might have been Bill. 

“Jesus. We look so happy,” Eddie says quietly.

Richie feels a lot less stoned after that. 

•

Eddie leaves somewhere around ten, but Bev and Richie don’t move from the floor until gone midnight. 

“Wanna stay?” Richie asks as he hauls himself up. 

Bev nods and stretches, rolling her neck and yawning. Richie thinks briefly about clearing the table, before deciding that’s a job for Tomorrow Richie. He brushes his teeth and strips down to his boxers, crawling into bed and wrapping an arm around Bev when she eventually follows. His brain is working overtime. 

“I wish I knew what happened,” he mumbles into her hair. “How does that _happen_ , Bev?” 

“He looked like shit,” she sighs. 

“Did I ever look that bad?” Richie asks, thinking back to six months ago. He can’t remember any of it, is the thing. 

“Yeah, you looked fucking awful,” Bevs says, voice thick with approaching sleep. “Like a wet rat, all the time. Smelled like one, too.”

“You’re a bitch,” Richie says, and Bev laughs. He pulls her closer, kicking the duvet down to their legs, because it’s fucking hot, but he doesn’t want to let her go. “He thought we were a thing.”

Bev doesn’t reply for a minute, and Richie thinks she might have fallen asleep. 

“In another life, darling,” she says eventually. 

“Why not this one?” Richie whispers, running a hand down her thigh. Bev laughs and plucks his fingers off, pulling his arm back around her waist. 

“You _know_ that it wouldn’t work, Richie,” she says, half into the pillow. Richie sighs. 

“Yeah. I know.” 

•

Richie doesn’t hear much from Eddie for the rest of the week. They exchange a couple of texts on Monday; Eddie thanking him for Sunday and asking for his pear tart recipe. But honestly, Richie’s kind of preoccupied. 

He’s got a big show on Tuesday. It’s a support gig, actually, which Richie likes to think he’s past by now. But it’s at the Upright Citizens Brigade, and really he’s just glad to be on the _bill_ there. He’s also _really_ glad for the distraction. 

He’s doing some of his old material, but he’s got with him a fat book of new shit he’s spent hours on; days and days in the Overlook, working towards this whole new brutally honest direction. He’s not _talked_ about his alcoholism. He was told not to, not being somewhat in the limelight, and it being early days. Not that he _wanted_ to talk about it in the early days, not to his fucking therapist, and definitely not to a room of hundreds of strangers. But he’s passed sixty days- like, _actually_ , this time- and several _pretty fucking big_ _dips_ in the road without a drink. He thinks he’s ready to talk about it. A little. 

It’s lying there, under a thick layer of what Richie hopes are relatively funny gags, but it’s there. How he woke up one day in a stranger’s bathtub, wearing nothing but Buzz Lightyear boxers that most definitely weren’t his. How he once told a liquor store clerk that he should get a free bottle of tequila, because he was actually the great grandson of Elizabeth Short. You know, who definitely didn’t have kids. The only person he’d convinced after that interaction was himself, and he remembers spending hours in drunken mania, shelling out hundreds for home ancestry kits which he ordered to the wrong apartment. 

They’re funny stories, Richie admits now. They make good bits. 

So he doesn’t blame himself for not thinking about Eddie too much, as he steps on stage, ready to tell a sold-out room of people about parts of his soul he hasn’t shared with anyone. 

It goes- it goes really fucking well. He has a forty-five minute slot, and it passes in a kind of daze. He barely has the time to feel nervous when he hits the stage. The lights are so bright he can hardly see the audience, and so he imagines he’s just practicing, with no one but Bev and Cat watching. He even manages to joke about the offer of whiskey he was propositioned with before he went on. 

“Cheeky bitch was trying to get me wasted,” he says, throwing a wink to the poor offending boy standing just behind the curtain. The audience laugh as Richie waves a forgiving hand at him. “Nah, you’re good. Do it again and my sponsor will fucking kill you, though.” 

The applause follows him backstage when his slot is over, and Richie watches the rest of the show before driving back to his apartment, finally understanding what a sober high feels like. 

He comes down pretty fucking hard. 

He’s greeted by a slumped figure, sitting outside his door. 

“Hey, Trashmouth,” Eddie drawls, looking up at him through heavy eyelids, a lopsided smile plastered dozily on his face. It wobbles, though, and he presses the heels of his hands into his eyes, taking in a shaky breath.

“Hey,” Richie manages to get out, heart in the soles of his shoes. He moves closer, slowly, right as the first of Eddie’s tears brim over his lashes. “Eds. What have you done?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you especially to freddie, again, but also to the feral cheerleaders of this fic on twitter, you know who you are. thanks to cal for telling me how american clocks work. regarding eddie's marriage timeline: canon is a playground and i won't get off the swings. 
> 
> richie's shirt has [this](https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/504543964506673289/) horrific pattern on it. cat looks like [this](https://www.catster.com/cats-101/orange-tabby-cat-facts). 
> 
> see you next week!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i don't condone the term 'junkie', or richie's fat mom jokes. these guys are just assholes.

Getting Eddie into the apartment isn’t easy. 

Sure, he weighs- _fuck_. He weighs nothing. Richie could count his ribs and his vertebrae with his fingertips. He tries not to. But Eddie’s completely boneless, and by the time Richie’s got him standing, he then has to tackle holding him up whilst getting the key in the door. It takes a solid five minutes, and in the end Richie practically carries him to the couch. Eddie’s out cold almost the moment his head hits a cushion. Richie stands back, runs his hands over his face, collapsing against one of the kitchen stools as his knees turn to liquid. He looks at the clock. It’s only just midnight. 

Cat stirs where he’s curled up by the balcony doors, meandering over to Richie’s feet and nuzzling his left shin. Richie reaches down to pet his head, and only then realises how violently his hands are shaking. He lets out a rough breath, taking off his glasses and closing his eyes. 

What the _fuck_ now? 

He’s _never_ seen Eddie like this. Not even when they were sixteen, and Bill had stolen a bottle of his dad’s whiskey. They’d all got drunk together for the first time, that night. Bill had cried. Richie thinks he might have cried, too, but he hadn’t told anyone. Eddie threw up so much that everyone thought he might actually have been in real trouble, but it was still kind of funny. When he’d pulled himself together, he’d started _screaming_ at them all about alcohol poisoning, about how his mom was going to _kill_ him if he died. He’d still been _Eddie_. 

Richie looks at the man on his couch. He doesn’t know him. 

“ _Fuck_ ,” he hisses, as the sharp press of tears cuts into his throat. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.” 

He nudges Cat off his feet and tiptoes out onto the balcony- although he’s pretty sure nothing short of a Chernobyl-type disaster is waking Eddie right now. Richie lights a cigarette, and thinks briefly about flinging himself over the railings. He’d only land in the pool below, though, and he decides it’s not worth getting his clothes wet. So he chain-smokes until his fingers stop vibrating so much, turning back to his living room.

Cat’s hopped onto the couch and nestled his way in between Eddie’s feet. Richie leans down to scratch Cat’s ears, heaving a sigh as he purrs contentedly. 

“You’ve got no idea, have you, buddy?” he whispers. 

Eddie shifts slightly, and Richie watches as his face screws up for a second, before relaxing back into sleep. He looks beautiful, really. The moonlight has thrown blue shadows underneath his eyelashes, and one long lock of hair has fallen down over his temple. The temptation to tuck it back behind his ear makes Richie’s fingers _burn_. He stands up before he does anything stupid, like stroke Eddie’s cheek or something, toeing off his shoes and slinking into his bedroom. 

Richie strips off and sinks into bed, fucking miserable, too keyed up to sleep.

•

He’s in a _foul_ mood the next day.

It’s 10am by the time he wakes up, and he can hear Eddie shuffling around in his living room. Richie got to sleep around five, and he’s pretty bitter that Eddie probably slept like the dead. He’s pretty fucked off that he was having a really, _really_ good evening- until. He’s pretty angry that- that- okay, so. He can’t think of another. He’ll find something, though. Being angry feels a lot easier than anything else, right now. After fifteen minutes of dealing with the moral dilemma of not wanting to talk to Eddie, but _really_ needing to feed his cat, Richie drags himself out of bed and tugs on some boxers and a t-shirt.

Eddie’s pacing the length of the kitchen when Richie walks in. He’s wringing his hands frantically, brows drawn close together. Richie feels a twinge of something in his chest, before he remembers he’s meant to be pissed off. He clears his throat and Eddie jumps, ceasing his steps and looking up like a deer in the headlights.

“Hey,” he says quietly. 

Richie nods. He moves sluggishly over to his coffee machine, flicking it on, reaching into the cupboard beneath the sink and pulling out Cat’s food. He fills his bowl, puts the food away, says nothing. He leans against the island in the middle of the kitchen. Eddie’s on the other side of it. It feels like a safe distance. 

“Listen, man, I’m really fucking sorry- shit,” Eddie starts, pacing picking up again. “I feel like _such_ a dick, man. Jeez. I should _not_ have come here last night, Richie, I’m such a dick. I don’t wanna, like, compromise your sobriety, or anything.” 

“You did that when you came to that first meeting,” Richie says. 

Eddie frowns. “What does that mean?”

Richie shakes his head, because maybe that’s not fair. It’s not like Eddie _knows_ what effect he has on him. It’s not like Richie’s ever fucking _told_ him, ‘cos Richie can’t really pin it down himself. He just knows that Eddie makes him kind of insane, and that’s not really something that goes hand in hand with sobriety. Eddie clenches his jaw for a second.

“I was just drunk,” he says. 

“Eds-” Richie starts, but Eddie throws his hands up. 

“I wouldn’t fuckin’- _come_ here on that shit, Richie. I wouldn’t- shit. I wouldn’t have the legs, for a start.” 

That turns Richie’s stomach, a bit. He doesn’t want to know what effect heroin has on Eddie’s navigational skills. He’s still working on thinking the words _Eddie_ and _heroin_ in the same sentence without having a fucking breakdown. 

“When did you turn into such a fucking nightmare, Eds?” he asks. 

Eddie frowns at him, looks down at his feet. Richie feels that guilt again, pressing on the inside of his skull, but he doesn’t apologise. Eddie sits back down on the couch, eyes still fixed on the floor. Richie sucks in a deep breath, walks over, sits down next to him. 

“Jesus _Christ_ ,” he says, and Eddie finally looks up. “I mean- you threw up when I got my _ear_ _pierced_. How the fuck do you end up on fucking needles, dude? It’s- it’s the _dumbest_ shit ever, Eddie, you’re meant to be the clever one.” 

Eddie stares at him, mouth falling open in a silent _O_ , because maybe it’s pretty harsh, but Richie’s _exhausted_. He’s never beaten around the bush. Not with anyone, and definitely not with Eddie. He’s not starting now. 

“I’m serious, Eddie,” he says, when Eddie stays quiet. “You can come here if you need to. You can ring me at 5am from a fucking _crack den_ if you have to. But you’re a bigger dickwad than I thought if you expect that without _telling_ me shit.”

“I don’t expect any-” 

“Shut the _fuck_ up, oh my _God,_ you’re such an asshole!” Richie bursts out, because _Jesus_ , because he’s _tired_ , because maybe Eddie _isn’t_ the smart one at all. Eddie blinks at him. “I _want_ you to do that shit. I want you to fucking- I want you to fucking _talk_ to me, dude.”

Eddie stares for a bit longer, and just as Richie’s about to say _fuck this_ , he mumbles something barely audible.

“I’m sorry?” Richie cranes his neck. “Were those _words_?”

“I said _your_ _cat’s pissed on the floor_ ,” Eddie says louder, and Richie looks up. He has, as well.

“Oh, for _fuck’s_ sake.” 

He moves over to Cat, picking him up under one arm and wrenching the balcony door open with the other hand, dumping the offending animal outside as he goes for some kitchen towel. As he’s throwing down sheet after sheet on the floor, Eddie- starts talking. 

“I threw up when you got your ear pierced because you did it _yourself_ with a _sewing needle_ in a _field_ ,” he says. “And I’ve never been to a- a crack den. It’s- it’s not like that.” 

Richie straightens up, crossing his arms.

“What’s it like, Eds?” he says. Eddie pulls in a deep breath, shifting awkwardly.

“It’s- I’ve never done it like that. I’m not-” he stops, frowns.

“Not like the other junkies?” Richie supplies, and it’s meant to be teasing, but Eddie glares at him.

“Don’t be an asshole,” he says. “I’m telling you shit, aren’t I?”

Riche bites his tongue, ‘cos- yeah, he is. He wants him to.

“I’m not a junkie,” he says emphatically. “I just- fuck, man. I’ve lived my whole fucking life being told there’s _this_ wrong with me and there’s _that_ wrong with me- Myra, she was. _Just_ like Mom. So I- I was on all these fuckin’ pills, man. She said I was a fuckin’ druggie in the divorce papers, but it was all her, dude. I mean. It was mostly her. _She_ was telling me to take them, I- anyway. I think she just got sick of me and wanted an excuse.”

He’s looking down at his hands, brow knitted. Richie feels his heart beating in his throat. 

“I think- I dunno, man,” Eddie sighs. “When she left me I tried to stop taking so many. I think it fucked with my brain, man, ‘cos I did. I stopped, like, seven pills at once, dude. And I think I don’t know how to be a fuckin’ _person_ without someone telling me how, ‘cos I thought I could have this, like. I don’t know- late fuckin’ teenage rebellion.” 

“With heroin,” Richie deadpans, because- _Jesus_. Eddie couldn’t have just done what Richie did and got a _piercing_ , or something?

“It didn’t start out with that,” Eddie says, looking at Richie. “I did- other stuff. I can’t even- fuck. I’m clean about it, okay? No- no fucking crack dens. It’s- clinical. I don’t know.” 

He tugs his hands through his hair. Richie’s heart fucking _hurts_ , and he goes back over to him, sits down again, thinking. 

“Are you-” Richie starts, before deciding he doesn’t want to know. Not right now. “Fuck,” he says instead. 

Eddie laughs, head still in his hands. 

“Yeah.”

“Eddie, you don’t _need_ anyone to tell you how to be a person,” Richie says. “You’re- fuck. You’re not half as breakable as everyone makes you feel.”

He wants to _drill_ that into Eddie’s brain. That he _is_ a person, he’s the most _real_ person Richie’s ever fucking met. He wants to kill everyone who’s ever made him feel like he’s made of glass, because maybe he wouldn’t _be_ in this situation if people had just told him that he can _cope_. Eddie looks at him, then. After a moment the corners of his eyes crinkle in a small, kind of watery smile. 

“You’ve never made me feel like that,” he says quietly. 

•

Eddie leaves by lunch, and Richie _needs_ a distraction. Like, yesterday. 

Bev’s at work all day, and although Eddie’s promised him that he’ll text later, to let him know he’s not, like, _died-_ Richie’s mind is wandering like crazy. So he flops down on his couch, unlocks his phone, and pulls up Grindr. 

Okay, so. Here’s the thing: Richie’s _trying_ not to think about it. It’s been- fuck. It’s been a _while_ since Richie hooked up with a woman. Like, ten years kind of a while. He’s been leaning into the whole eligible bachelor thing since his stand-up has taken off. He’s got a nice, big flat. He can afford good shoes. He’s got a cat. He doesn’t _need_ anything romantic right now. 

That’s what he tells the interviewers, anyway. He laughs it off, says he likes to keep his public and private life separate, which _is_ true. Not least ‘cos, for the last four or five years, Richie’s been fucking guys. It’s not like he’s going down to _The Abbey_ every Saturday night, or even going on dates, really. It’s mostly one-night things, Grindr hook-ups, someone he meets in the back of a comedy club and gets talking to. It’s taken _him_ a long fucking time to realise it just feels more- _right_ with men. He’s not ready for the whole world to know, yet.

Of course- also- there’s always been Eddie. Richie knows he was the beginning of it. He knows he used to _cling_ to him like no one else- find _every_ excuse to touch him, even just bumping their knees together, or tipping him off his bike. Richie remembers the first time he noticed his breath catching when he looked at him. He’s pretty sure they were twelve. They were down by the Barrens, and the evening sun had caught Eddie’s freckles just right, making them appear as flecks of gold. 

But that was a long time ago. There _was_ the great comedy show disaster of ten years ago. He’d been 22, just moved to L.A., and heard that Eddie was in the city for one night. He thought he could handle it. Thought that he’d somehow managed to forget that Eddie made his stomach twist in a way that was sickeningly close to butterflies. But he hadn’t. Obviously. He’d ended up having sixteen shots of vodka, and telling him- 

It doesn’t really matter. However Richie feels about him is irrelevant right now.

So Richie scratches Cat on the head, and starts scrolling through guys aimlessly. 

•

Sleep comes like post on a Sunday for the second night in a row. By the time Richie drags himself out of bed on Thursday morning he feels his brain edging closer to its final form of sludge, like day old gravy that never made it into the fridge. 

He _loves_ Cat, he really does. But if he was in his right mind when he’d got him, and aware of the fact that keeping a pet generally means getting up every day to feed it, he might have reconsidered. As it happened, Richie was absolutely wasted when he found him. It was straight after a piss-poor stand-up show, and he’d just lifted the lid of a nearby alley bin to vomit into when he’d heard a weak, ugly mewling coming from inside. He managed to spew off to the side at the last second, before peering into the trashcan and pulling out a very skinny, _very_ damp Cat. Richie vaguely remembers the vicious argument that had ensued with a taxi driver afterwards. So he’d walked. About an hour across L.A., hammered off his gourd, with a loud, unhappy kitten in his jacket pocket. 

All this had come back to Richie in fragments over the last year or so. Through periods of being sober, he’s been able to remember more than he’d like of his black-outs. But back then, he’d just woken up with a cat retching on his pillow, no recollection of how it had got there. 

“Been a pain in my ass ever since, haven’t you?”

Cat looks up from where he’s stretching languidly on the couch, and meows happily. 

Richie feeds him, and downs a cup of coffee. He pulls out his phone, hovering over the keys, before sending Eddie a quick text.

 _TO: EDDIE KASPBRAK:_ _  
__(10:07AM)_ _  
__Hey, you coming tonight?_

He doesn’t expect a reply within the next hour, but to his surprise, his phone buzzes almost immediately. 

**EDDIE KASPBRAK:** **  
****(10:09 AM)** **  
****do you want me to?**

Richie stares at the message. He wants _literally_ nothing more, but something lodges in his chest at the rocky responsibility of it all. You’re meant to be sober to come to group meetings. It’s rule number one- you have to at least be _trying_. Richie doesn’t know how hard Eddie’s trying, right now. He runs his hands over his face a couple times, willing the knot in his stomach to unclench, before coming to the miserable conclusion that it might not unclench for the next hour. Or the next. _Fuck_. Jesus- it might just _be_ there until Eddie’s actually _okay_. He swallows, opting for honesty. 

_TO: EDDIE KASPBRAK:_ _  
__(10:13 AM)_ _  
__I really do._

Less than a minute later, Eddie’s response comes through.

 **EDDIE KASPBRAK:** **  
****(10:13 AM)** **  
****eager much?**

Richie smiles, fingers flying over the keyboard.

 _TO: EDDIE KASPBRAK:_ _  
__(10:14 AM)_ _  
__That’s what your mom said. When I was fucking her._

 **EDDIE KASPBRAK:** **  
****(10:14 AM)  
** **unwanted image.**

 _TO: EDDIE KASPBRAK:_ _  
__(10:15 AM)_ _  
__I can send you an unwanted image if you like._

Richie realises he’s kind of flirting a minute too late. He’s already hit send, and a bundle of nerves and regret sucker-punch him in the stomach almost immediately. He throws his phone down onto the couch cushions like it’s a grenade. Bad idea. Bad, bad, _bad_ idea. He starts reaching for his cigarettes, mind whirring. Maybe Eddie wouldn’t read it that way? Hell, when they were kids Richie would flirt with him _constantly_ , in his own way. Eddie wouldn’t have known it if it hit him in the face, back then. Richie wants to ignore it when his phone buzzes, but almost automatically he picks it up off the sofa, peering through the cracked screen. 

**EDDIE KASPBRAK:** **  
****(10:18 AM)** **  
****if i liked it then it wouldn’t be unwanted would it. fucknut**

Richie can’t tell if it’s reciprocity. He’s _never_ been able to tell with Eddie. When they were boys, they’d treat each other the same. That ever-present need to be touching. Richie would hold Eddie’s head underwater until he resurfaced- _shrieking_ about his asthma- throw shit at him, physically upend him out of their hammock. He knows, in hindsight, that he might as well have been tugging on Eddie’s pigtails. Eddie’s different, though. He’s always been _scrappy-_ a survival tactic being the smallest of the group, the easiest target. He never let himself _be_ that, giving as good as he got to _anyone_ who dished it out. Not just Richie. Richie feels a pang of old jealousy at the thought. He changes the topic.

 _TO: EDDIE KASPBRAK:_ _  
__(10:22AM)_ _  
__Come over before the meeting?_

Richie traipses out onto the balcony. The reply comes minutes later.

 **EDDIE KASPBRAK:** **  
****(10:25 AM)** **  
****at least buy me a drink first.**

and then;

 **EDDIE KASPBRAK:** ****  
**(10:25 AM)** **  
****soda, obviously.**

Richie laughs, lighting up a cigarette and leaning back on a balcony chair. He inhales deeply, tapping out a reply with deft enthusiasm, pushing aside the part of his brain screaming _bad idea, bad idea, bad idea_. It’s not flirting. He stretches out in the sun, smiling against his better judgment, all traces of his restless night disappearing. 

•

Richie’s feeling pretty good, all things considering. Eddie’s crouched in the corner of his kitchen, arm outstretched, Cat nuzzling at his fingers affectionately. He looks- he looks the same, really. Richie wants to convince himself that he looks _better_ , but he doesn’t. He looks less hungover, sure. But his eyes still bare the deep shadows of someone who’s not had a proper sleep in weeks, and his sleeves are pushed back- revealing to Richie, for the first time, his skinny forearms, and the purpling of little bruises scattered along his veins. They’re not pushed all the way up, though, cuffs stopping just short of the insides of his elbows. Richie’s- pretty _fucking_ glad of that. However bitchy that sounds. 

Eddie looks more _comfortable_ , though. His smile is creeping up closer towards his eyes. He bounces back on his heels as he plays with Cat. Richie watches dumbly, as he pushes a lock of hair away from his brow, tucks it behind his left ear. Sunlight pools in from the kitchen window through the leaves of Richie’s Monstera on the counter, and throws dappled shadows across Eddie’s face. It makes him look soft. It makes him look _golden_. Within five minutes of Richie’s stupid staring, Eddie’s lying flat on his back on the floor, laughing as Cat’s snuffling at his neck and licking his face. It’s- fucking adorable, frankly.

“He licks his dick with that tongue,” Richie says, and Eddie looks up, horrified. “Come on, Spaghetti Head, we got a rehab date.” 

•

Richie’s kind of in awe of Eddie at the meeting. Everyone else seems to be, too, because for the first time since attending them, he’s _talking_. Not, like, mumbling. He’s sat there, fiddling with his sleeves, looking down at his shoes, and the words are just _flowing_ out like a fucking dam’s broken. It’s not much more than what he’d said to Richie- about his mom, his divorce. But Richie feels a hot swell of giddiness filling his gut at the sight of Eddie actually _opening up_ , like he might actually _want_ this. Like he might actually be okay.

Richie slaps him between his shoulder blades as they’re walking home, grinning like a maniac.

“You did good there!” he says. “Could almost hear you, and everything.”

“Fuck off, Rich,” Eddie says. “I still don’t understand why we’re going to walk your cat.”

Richie had suggested it on their way back to the apartment. The sun is half-way to setting, casting an oil-spill of oranges, pinks, and yellows across the skyline. He _likes_ L.A., but it’s not often that it really _looks_ like it does in the movies. Mostly, it’s traffic smog and tourists. But there’s a warm breeze tonight, and it looks so fucking picturesque that Richie doesn’t want to just stay home. Not yet. 

“It’s a nice night,” he says, and Eddie raises an eyebrow at him.

“Yeah, I can _see_ that, dipshit,” he says. “I mean- why are we gonna _walk_ your _cat_. Isn’t it a house cat?” 

“ _He_ ,” Richie says pointedly, “is a house cat. That’s why he needs _walking_. ‘Cos he doesn’t go outside much.” 

“It’s- it’s fucking ridiculous,” Eddie says, as they reach Richie’s apartment block. “Do cats even _like_ being walked?”

“As much as your mom did,” Richie says. 

Eddie scrunches up his face, whether in confusion or frustration Richie can’t really tell, but he looks hilarious doing it. 

“That doesn’t make any _sense_ , Rich, my mom _never_ walked anywhere.”

“You can say that again,” Richie says, ignoring the opening and shutting of Eddie’s dumbfounded, cute little mouth, as he strides into his flat, and grabs Cat’s lead from under the sink. He finds the tabby lounging on his bed and hooks the leash onto his collar, sweeping him under his left arm and heading towards the door again. Eddie’s leaning against it, arms crossed. When Richie reaches for the latch, he doesn’t move. 

“To exit a door, there generally needs to _not_ be a Kaspbrak obstructing it,” Richie says. 

“You’ve really got your life together here, haven’t you?” Eddie says. 

Richie blinks. “Huh?”

Eddie pushes himself off the doorframe, moving aside so that Richie can walk through, Cat underarm, and follows. 

“Nothing,” Eddie says. 

“Listen, Eds, if you’re jealous of the lifestyle of the rich and famous, we can get you a cat to walk, too,” Richie says. “Get you some new clothes, because _seriously_. Or you could just release a sex tape- the one I made with your mom got me pretty far.”

“Oh, _fuck_ you.”

“Yeah, people will pay top dollar to see someone fuck a manatee on some websites. You look like you’re familiar with which ones- _ow!_ ” 

•

The city clings onto the last threads of warmth from the low-hanging sun, and Richie and Eddie chase it to the west, eventually watching it set in a bloody smudge over the beach. They sit in the sand for a while, Cat snoozing in Eddie’s lap. Richie can’t stop _looking_ at him. Eddie stretches out, eyes closed and head tipped back to catch the last dregs of evening sun, hair shifting softly in the gentle wind. Richie kind of wants to bite his throat, just a little. 

He should have _known_ that seeing Eddie again would bring all this shit up. But it’s not like he was _planning_ on seeing him again. At least, not unprepared. _Definitely_ not whilst chained to sobriety. So, when Richie hears himself ask if Eddie wants to stay the night, he’s secretly kind of hoping that he’ll say _fuck no, are you crazy_? Instead, Eddie sits up and blinks, like waking up, considering.

“Sure,” he says. 

“Okay,” says Richie. 

They walk back in a silence that feels weighted, Richie’s fingertips tingling, fiddling with Cat’s lead nervously. He’s- he’s overthinking.

He heads straight for his room when they get back, unleashing Cat and dragging out a t-shirt that’s definitely going to be too big for Eddie. He chucks it at him when he walks back to the living room, and Eddie catches it with a strange expression on his face.

“What, you so uptight you sleep in a collared shirt now?” Richie asks. When Eddie visibly falters, realisation drops on Richie, and he feels like a _dick_. “Shit- Eds, I’m sorry. I think I’ve got a long sleeve somewhere- I mean. I don’t _care_ . I’m not _judging-_ ”

“Richie…” Eddie starts, and Richie holds up a hand. 

“I mean, fuck, I’ve been in _rehab_ , Eddie. I know what it looks like when-”

“Shut _up_ , Rich,” Eddie says. “I don’t- I don’t care about _that_. I mean- I do, but.” 

Now Richie’s confused. “What, grown a third nipple since I last saw you topless, or?” 

“We were, like, eighteen.” 

“So… you have?” 

“Jesus Christ,” Eddie says, striding past Richie into the bathroom, rolling his eyes. 

Richie stares after him, dumbfounded, before heading to the couch. His hands shake, a little. It’s around eleven-thirty. In another life, he’d be reaching for a beer right about now. Instead, he goes into his coffee table, pulls out his weed. Starts rolling. 

“Don’t fucking laugh, Richie, if you fucking laugh I swear to _God_ I will rip off your testicles and feed them to your cat.”

Richie looks up. Eddie’s standing near the kitchen counter, and Richie’s shirt _is_ huge on him- his bare, wiry legs poking out of the bottom of it where he’s tugging on the hem. But Eddie- 

Eddie’s got _tattoos_. 

There’s something odd and coloured on one of his shins, and what looks like a _cowboy_ on his arm. Richie doesn’t laugh. Richie can barely speak. 

“Listen, I was pretty fucked up at the time, okay,” Eddie starts to fill the silence, folding his arms across his chest, that familiar, frantic quality taking over his voice. “I mean. For some of them.”

Richie’s mouth drops open.

“ _Some-_ ”

“ _And-_ and you’re not the _only_ one that can do stupid shit, okay, Richie? Don’t- don’t keep that to yourself. It’s been- I’ve not seen you for, like, _ten_ years, alright? I’ve _lived_. I’ve done stuff.”

“Have you been to prison?” 

“Shut the _fuck_ up, I swear to _God_ ,” Eddie says, and Richie finally laughs. 

Eddie huffs miserably and comes to slump next to him on the couch, arms crossed, glowering at the coffee table. Richie tries to stop laughing, he really does. It takes him a minute, eventually getting a hold of himself just short of turning bright red. 

“Your balls are cat food.”

“Hey- _aw_ , Eds,” he says, reaching over to pat Eddie’s knee. Eddie jerks it away, which only makes Richie laugh more. “Don’t _strop_.”

“Are you fucking lighting that thing, or what?” Eddie nods towards the rolled joint, still refusing to look at Richie. Richie smirks, and lights it. 

•

“So- you said _some_ of them,” Richie says, one hour and two pretty packed joints later. 

He’s splayed out down one end of the couch, Eddie mirroring his position, their feet lazily fighting for dominance in the middle. Eddie’s got the joint between his fingers, and looks at Richie with narrowed eyes, one eyebrow raised. 

“Some of _what_?”

“Your prison ink,” Richie says, and Eddie flicks ash at him. Richie laughs, swiping the burning embers off his leg before his hairs start to singe, snatching the joint from Eddie’s hand. “Be _careful_ , dickweed, this couch cost more than your fucking Italian shoes. I’m serious, I want to see.”

Eddie’s got his jaw set and his brows drawn in a hard scowl, inhaling deeply through his nose.

“Oh, _unclench_ , will you?” Richie says. 

Eddie glares a little more, before heaving possibly the _biggest_ sigh Richie’s _ever_ heard. _Drama_ _queen_. 

“Fine,” he spits, and Richie grins ear to ear. “But! Only because I _know_ you’re going to be fucking insufferable until I do. You’re _such_ a dick, you know that?”

Richie leans back patiently, and- after a moment’s more hesitation- Eddie pulls the t-shirt over his head. 

There _are_ more tattoos- a fair few. Something geometric on his bicep, a delicate bird on one shoulder, some kind of labyrinth on the opposite one. What strikes Richie hardest, though, is how _bony_ he is. It hurts to look at, a bit. He’s always been _slender_. When Richie hit his growth spurt, his shoulders seemed to grow horizontally at the same time, and although _growth spurt_ might be a bit of a reach for Eddie he’d still _grown_. A couple inches. As a teenager he’d sort of stretched upwards, leaving behind his rounded, rosy cheeks, and gaining a semi-lanky appearance. But _this_ Eddie- _Jesus_. Richie bites his lip, willing his staring away from his clavicles to the tattoos that sit just below them. Two dark, solid stars either side of his chest, with cursive resting in between them. 

“What the fuck does _No Dice_ mean?”

“It means I’m fuckin’ crap at _Yahtzee_ , I don’t fuckin’ know, Richie, I was out of my mind.” 

Part of it makes Richie a bit sad. _His_ Eddie had a panic attack when Richie pierced his own ear. _His_ Eddie was a _my-body-is-a-temple_ kind of _irritating_ dick- but Richie guesses that kind of shit goes out the window when you start shooting up. And honestly, the tattoos are- well, they’re kind of _sexy_. Richie sort of _really_ wants to touch them. _Fuck_ , he’s stoned. He stubs out the end of the joint.

“Okay, I honestly thought you’d have more piss-taking to do,” Eddie says, and Richie, with a herculean effort, looks up at his face.

“You told me not to,” Richie says, brain still struggling for something that’s not _reach out and touch them, do it, do it-_

“Jesus, when has that ever stopped you? Now I think you’re being a dick. Are you being a dick? They’re not _that_ bad.”

“No, Eds,” Richie silences his fretting, swallowing thickly. Richie realises, kind of a moment too late, that he’s sat up from his position, leaning more over to Eddie’s side of the couch. He clears his throat. 

“Okay, because- you kind of look like you’re having some kind of episode,” Eddie says. “Can you say something so I feel like less of a monumental prat, please?”

“They’re pretty hot,” Richie says, voice travelling out from his mouth like something that doesn’t belong to him. Eddie blinks at him. Richie half expects him to tell him to _get fucked_ , to shove him off the couch and run. Instead, he just says;

“Yeah?” 

“Yeah,” Richie says- because he’s already said enough to dig his own grave. Might as well keep digging, at this point. Eddie just stares at him, his mouth open slightly, chest rising and falling quickly. 

“Richie,” he says, “you look like you’re about to eat me.” 

“Not much on you,” Richie says. He doesn’t know why he hasn’t moved back to his end of the couch yet. He thinks Eddie’s sort of moved closer, too, but that could be wishful thinking. 

“Don’t be a bitch,” Eddie says. It’s pretty much a whisper. 

Richie bites the bullet without thinking, putting a hand either side of Eddie’s ribs and leaning forward, kissing him hard. He feels Eddie go stiff as a board underneath him, and then- 

Then, he opens his mouth, and Richie’s tongue moves against his in some kind of animal reflex. One of Eddie’s hands comes up to fist awkwardly at Richie’s shirt, his hips lifting as he presses himself against Richie’s body, and Richie goes to jelly above him, pushing him back into the couch cushions. He runs one hand down the rungs of Eddie’s ribs, his fingertips burning against his cold skin, and Eddie _shivers_ , sort of _whimpers_. Richie feels like he’s going to pass the fuck out. He drags his hand back up Eddie’s side, reaching his jaw, and tilts his chin back, chasing the taste of Eddie on his tongue. He could count his teeth at this angle, he thinks absently. 

Then Eddie’s tapping on Richie’s chest, pushing slightly, and Richie pulls away from the kiss reluctantly. Eddie looks delicious, all pink lips and blown pupils.

“What- what the fuck’s going on,” Eddie manages to get out, voice strung high. 

“Uh- California weed,” Richie says, just as strangled. 

“ _Fuck_ , Rich,” Eddie says, and then Richie’s not smiling, because Eddie’s pushing himself up, wriggling a hand free and dragging it through his hair, over his face. “I’m not- this- this is a _bad_ fucking idea.” 

Richie sits back as Eddie further wrangles himself out from underneath him. He swings his legs off the couch, picks the t-shirt off the floor, puts it back on, and sits with his head in his hands. Richie thinks this is what being shot with a damn twelve gauge must feel like. 

“We’re stoned as shit,” he says, hoping it doesn’t sound as _desperate_ as he feels.

“Yeah,” Eddie says. “Okay. I’m- uh-”

He pushes himself to his feet, wobbling slightly, running his hands over his face a few more times before taking in a deep, shaky breath.

“You’re right. I- fuck. I don’t _smoke_. This was- God. I’m just gonna-” and then he’s walking into the bathroom, stumbling back out whilst tugging on his jeans, shoving his feet into his shoes. “I have to walk this off. I’ll- I’ll text you, okay? I’ll be back. I just- fuck. I’m sorry, Rich.” 

Richie watches, fucking _helpless_ , as Eddie fumbles with the latches on his door, swearing a few more times, before he’s flying out of Richie’s apartment, leaving the door wide open after him. Richie sits, immobile, for a solid five minutes, staring as it swings uselessly on its hinges. He gulps down a wave of nausea. His hands are trembling in his lap.

Richie could really use a fucking drink. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> freddie held a gun to my head and told me to include james ransone's tattoos, come after her not me.
> 
> google tells me the abbey is a gay club in los angeles. it also tells me l.a. has beaches, but i have never been so if my frequent comfort watches of 90210 are giving me incorrect info please let me know.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> phew longest chapter yet eek! tw for non-explicit drug use, and reasonably explicit withdrawal in this one. and safe but not smart sex. huge thanks to [anotetofollow](https://archiveofourown.org/users/anotetofollow) for beta'ing the porn i'd die without you xxx

Richie hasn’t had a hangover in a long time. 

It’s not fucking pleasant. His back aches like he’s been pressed like Giles Corey, because he’d fallen asleep on the fucking _couch_ like a dickhead. When he finally manages to roll himself off it, he practically crawls to the bathroom and drapes himself over the toilet, face burrowing into the crook of his arm like he can hide from his own conscience there.

He’d waited a good hour for Eddie to return, or text, or call, or _anything_. After another joint and a slightly unhinged phone call to Bev, Richie came to the conclusion that Eddie was never going to speak to him again. He’d bought a bottle of wine. He’s not _proud_. In fact, he’s really fucking ashamed, but the crushing pressure of nausuea clamping down around his stomach and his temples is torture enough, he thinks. For now. 

Richie throws up for approximately a _lifetime_ , before pulling himself into the shower and sitting under the cool spray until he begins to feel a tiny bit more human. By the time he clambers out, brushes his teeth, pulls on a t-shirt and some boxers, Cat is _screaming_ at him from the kitchen. Because it’s nearly midday, and Richie hasn’t fed him yet. _Jesus_. 

“I’m sorry, buddy,” he says, scratching between his ears and filling up his bowl. 

Richie leans back against the kitchen island and sighs. He’s fucking livid at himself, for more reasons than he can count. Probably for more reasons than is _reasonable_ , but still. He’d _kissed_ Eddie. _Eddie_. Which- sure, was something he’d been _dying_ to do for- fuck. _Decades_. And- and Eddie had kissed him _back_. Richie is pretty certain he hadn’t dreamed that. But Eddie had also stopped it, had bolted from his apartment- hadn’t come back. Or rang, or texted. 

A sick lump settles in Richie’s gut. He scrambles for his phone- buried between the couch cushions- and nearly chucks it across the room when it refuses to turn on. 

“Fuck, fuck, _fuck_!” he hisses, diving for the charger and shoving the cable in with impossibly clumsy fingers. “Come on, come on, _come on._ ” 

He crouches in front of the power socket, staring at the cracked screen. After what feels like an age, the battery symbol swaps out for the Apple logo, and the thing begins to vibrate as notifications pour through. 

(12 UNREAD EMAILS)  
(1 NEW MESSAGE: SPENCER THE SPONSOR)  
(9 NEW MESSAGES: BEVERLY MARSH)  
(4 MISSED CALLS: BEVERLY MARSH)

Richie’s hands shake almost too much to hold his phone. He ignores the emails and his sponsor, opening the texts from Bev and skimming over them.

 **BEVERLY MARSH** **  
** **(12:57 AM)** **  
** **Any sign of him? I tried to ring but his phone is off. xxx**

 **BEVERLY MARSH:** **  
** **(1:15 AM)** **  
** **Richie are you okay? Xxx**

 **BEVERLY MARSH:** **  
** **(1:26 AM)** **  
** **Please please ring me xxx**

Richie pinches the bridge of his nose. The other six messages are in the same vein. He feels like a _cunt_. He texts Bev quickly, to let her know he’s not flung himself off the balcony, and finds Eddie in his contacts. He pauses over his name.

Eddie clearly doesn’t _want_ to speak to him. Maybe Richie should just leave him alone, pray he’s just cooling off, and not that he’s already packed up and shipped off far away from L.A.- far away from him. Richie bites the inside of his cheek, massages one of his temples. His head fucking _hurts_. 

It’s _that_ thought that has his breath catching in his lungs. Richie fights down another wave of his hangover, and realises with surging terror, that if Eddie was half as stressed as _he_ was last night- he had much worse to reach for than a bottle. He hits Eddie’s name on the screen.

It rings, one short trill, before going to answer machine. Richie screws his eyes shut. He swallows against the rising panic attack, forcing himself to breathe in deeply through his nose- slowly out through his mouth- glass shards scratching the insides of his eyelids and threatening to push out the tears. 

“Eds,” he says. His voice comes out rough and mangled. “Fuck- I’m sorry. Just- just fucking ring me. If- if you’ve fucking died- I will _murder_ you.” 

He hangs up, sitting back on the floor against the couch, heaving in a couple more deep breaths. They’re halfway to sobs. He thinks, maybe, this is the _worst_ morning of his life. After a moment of trying desperately to get his increasing anxiety levels under control, he picks up his phone again- knows it’s useless, types out a text anyway.

 _TO: EDDIE KASPBRAK_ _  
_ _(11:53 AM)_ _  
_ _Pls don’t be in a ditch_

“Fuck, fuck.”

He presses his hands to his eyes underneath his glasses, swiping at the tears that are coming fast now. Just as he’s about to ring Eddie again, or chuck his phone out of the window- or chuck himself out, maybe- there’s a knock at his door. It makes him jump. He waits for a second, thinks maybe he’s imagined it, before it comes again, more insistent this time, and Richie stands on shaky legs, scrubs at his face a couple more times. It’s probably Bev, on her way to console him- or lobotomize him. Either way, Richie traipses to his door, pulling back the locks. 

It’s- 

It’s Eddie. He’s standing, shivering despite the midday heat, still in Richie’s gigantic t-shirt. Richie’s mouth drops open. He almost pinches himself. 

“You’re not in a ditch,” he says, stupidly.

“What?” 

Richie shakes his head, moving aside, and Eddie walks into his apartment like he’s walking to the fucking gallows. He looks horrendous- eyes red and hair sticking up at all angles. 

“Fuck, Eds,” Richie starts, feeling utterly dazed. “I thought you were-”

“I left my phone here,” Eddie says. It comes out in one quick, shaky breath. He’s not looking at Richie. 

“Oh.” 

Richie stands awkwardly. Neither of them move for a minute. Richie realises, then, that he’s damn _exhausted_. The panic seeps out of him, leaving him hollow and sick. Anger starts to take its place, and suddenly he wants to grab Eddie’s narrow shoulders and _shake_ him.

“Why didn’t you come back?” he asks. 

It’s quiet, at first. More level than he feels. Eddie looks up at him, brows drawn, mouth opening to say something, but Richie doesn’t give him a chance. He feels the anger fill his chest, and he doesn’t _care_ that he massively overstepped their boundaries last night, doesn’t _care_ that Eddie might hate him- because, all at once, Richie thinks he might hate him, too. 

“I’ve been going _insane_ , Eddie,” he says. “I thought you’d fuckin’ _OD’d_ or something. Jesus! You’re _such_ a fucking asshole, how- how _proud_ are you?”

Eddie blinks. “I don’t-”

“Shut the fuck up for _once_. You don’t fucking _do_ that, Eds. I don’t care how much you fuckin’ hate me for- for throwing myself at you. You should have come back.”

Richie wants to say more. Instead, he lets that hang. Lets Eddie hang his head for a minute, looking down at his shoes, before saying something so quiet Richie can’t hear it. 

“ _Stop_ talking in minus decibels,” Richie says. He’s being an asshole now, but he doesn’t care. He’s hungover, and fed up. “ _Jesus_ , Eds-”

“I said you didn’t _throw_ yourself at me, _fuck_ , don’t _you_ ever shut up” Eddie almost shouts, which knocks Richie for six. “I mean- you did. But I fuckin’- I kissed you back, didn’t I?”

Richie frowns. 

“So?”

“So? _So_?” Eddie’s eyes bulge out of his head, and _he_ sounds a bit mean now, too. “You’re such a damn genius, aren’t you, Rich? So I’m sorry I didn’t come back. I- that was fucked up of me. But I- I had to think.”

“Think?”

“ _Yeah_ , Rich, I had to think. About how I- I wanted to.”

Richie’s brain has gone blank. He has no idea what Eddie’s saying. He’s not making any sense. Richie messed up. They were stoned, and Eddie’s _straight_ , and Richie messed up, and that- as they say- is fucking _that_. 

“You want me to spell it out for you?” Eddie says. Richie kind of does, actually. “I _wanted_ to kiss you. I liked it. I- I want to- _fuck_. Jesus _Christ_.” 

Richie gapes as Eddie trails off. His heart is slamming double speed, palms sweating, head spinning. Eddie _wanted_ to kiss him. _Eddie-_ who Richie’s wanted to kiss for his _entire_ life, give or take a few years. Who Richie is pretty sure fucked him up forever- made it so he’s never had anything long term- made it so every fling and every lay Richie’s _ever_ had has had brown eyes, or small hands, or freckles that look gold in the sunlight. He stares at Eddie, who’s got his jaw set, breathing deeply through his nose. Something sad lodges in Richie’s throat, making his words come out hoarse.

“You’re on heroin,” he says. Eddie looks blindsided.

“Not right this fuckin’ _second_ ,” he says. 

Richie shakes his head. “No- I mean. It fucks you up, Eds.”

Eddie gapes a bit more, screwing his eyes shut in a long blink and shaking his head before looking at Richie like he’s an _alien_. 

“Jesus- what is this? I hadn’t _noticed_ , limpdick.”

“Eds-” Richie kicks himself, because his words aren’t _coming out right_ , and he’s sounding like a _huge_ prick. He sucks a deep breath in between his teeth, tries again, slower. “You don’t- you don’t _know_ what you want. When- when you’re fucked up, you don’t _know_.”

“I’ve not been _fucked up_ since I was, like, fifteen. Don’t tell me what I want.” 

Richie feels the breath rush out of him. 

“Since-” he says, but the end of the sentence never comes. 

Suddenly, he has to sit down. He collapses onto the couch, hands shaking, and he puts his elbows on his knees and starts tugging at his hair to steady him. He hears Eddie sigh, doesn’t look at him as he sits down on the other cushion. Neither of them speak for a long fucking time. Richie feels Eddie lean back after a bit, settling into the couch, and out of the corner of his eye he can see him tilt his neck back against the wall and stare up at the ceiling. Cat pads out of the kitchen and comes to rest at Richie’s feet. 

“Why didn’t you say anything?” he says eventually.

He feels Eddie shrug next to him. “Derry,” he says simply, and Richie- he gets it. 

Richie grits his teeth. “Eddie, I drank last night.”

He knows Eddie’s turned to look at him. He doesn’t say anything, and Richie heaves a breath, pushes his elbows off his knees and stops pulling at his hair. He looks back at Eddie, and his narrow face is twisted in something unreadable. He doesn’t want to ask, but he has to know. 

“Eds, what did _you_ do last night?” 

Eddie swallows, and it’s enough of an answer. Richie feels so _cavernously_ empty. So fucking bloody and _raw_ from the inside, because in the twenty years and millions of scenarios he’s had play out in his head- where Eddie _wants_ Richie like Richie wants him, not a single one of them played out like this. 

“I’m sorry that you drank,” Eddie says quietly. “I never want to do that to you.” 

Richie feels stretched out. He smiles sadly. 

“I did it to me,” he says. “That’s the point.” 

Eddie nods tightly. His hand rests just beside Richie’s knee. Richie’s fingers burn with the urge to hold it. 

“I know what I want," Eddie says. Richie says nothing. Eddie's looking him straight in the eye. “I want you. I _want_ _you_.” 

Richie sighs, and his little finger finds Eddie’s, linking them loosely, not quite holding. Six months ago, Richie wouldn’t need Eddie to tell him twice. He’d pull him close, into his lap, kiss him until the sun went down and came back up again. Kiss him until they starved to death, and the L.A. sun would rot their bodies together right here on this couch. It’s not even that he values his sobriety over a chance to be with Eddie. Richie’s never had an issue with screwing up his _own_ life. He just knows he can’t keep them both afloat. Richie says none of this- but Eddie looks at him for a long time, pulling their fingers tighter around each other, before clenching his jaw and nodding. 

“Okay,” he says. He stands up, pushing his hair out of his face, exhaling in a deep rush of air. 

Richie watches wordlessly as Eddie smiles at him thinly, and walks towards the door. He fumbles with the latches- and for the second time in twenty-four hours, he leaves Richie alone on his couch, a breeze block pressing on the inside of his chest. The moment the door shuts behind Eddie, his resolve crumbles. 

“ _Fuck_ ,” he breathes, a dam breaking, and Richie curls into himself on the couch. 

He can’t get a fucking _minute_ to wallow, apparently, because the moment he does there’s another knock at the door. He drags himself up miserably, half-hysterical, opening it with tears falling freely down his face.

“I forgot to get my phone,” Eddie says, and it’s barely a whisper. 

“Alright,” Richie says. 

Eddie draws in a deep breath. He surges forwards, and his lips clash with Richie’s, falling through the door and backing him up into the wall. Richie’s mouth opens against his, and he has to lean down to maintain the kiss, one arm coming round to circle Eddie’s middle, the other hand tangling in his hair. 

“ _Fuck_ ,” Eddie gasps into his mouth. “I’m sorry-” he says in between open-mouthed kisses, not seeming very sorry at all. 

“Shut the fuck up,” Richie says. 

He pulls Eddie’s head back with the hand in his hair, and Eddie _whimpers_ , legs going weak at the knees to the point where Richie thinks his hand on the small of his back is the only thing keeping him upright. Their height difference is making things increasingly awkward, coupled with the fact that Eddie’s _melting_ against him, and Richie reaches down to grab his ass and lifts him up in one clumsy motion. Eddie’s legs immediately wrap around Richie’s waist. He’s still kissing him fervently, alternating between licking hungrily against Richie’s own tongue, and pressing sloppy kisses to the corners of his lips, his neck, the dips below his ears. Eddie’s making hot, breathless noises into Richie’s mouth, his bony fingers holding his shoulders in a death grip. Richie manages to blindly carry him over to the couch, dropping him down onto it with less grace than he’d like. Eddie doesn’t seem to notice, though, hands coming round to grab at Richie’s shirt as he pulls him down on top of him. 

“ _Fuck_ , Richie, Jesus-” he gasps again, and Richie’s lost the ability to tell him to shut up. 

There’s a white hot glare behind his eyes, short-circuiting his brain as Eddie’s feet kick bruises into his back, legs drawing him in closer between his hips. Eddie grabbing at the hem of Richie’s shirt, and Richie breaks the kiss just enough for him to pull it over his head, before his mouth is back on Eddie’s like he’s fucking _drowning_ , like he’ll literally _die_ if he stops. He slides a hand underneath Eddie’s back, pulling him up closer- as _close_ as fucking possible- and Eddie _moans_ as Richie grinds against his ass. 

“ _Rich_ ,” he whines. 

“Yeah,” Richie says, sitting up a little to pull Eddie’s t-shirt off. 

He dips his head down, pressing kisses to the tattoos on his chest. Eddie’s hands tangle in his hair and he arches his back a little. His fingers are trembling. His _whole_ _body_ is trembling actually, like it’s not three days short of June in California- _vibrating_ underneath Richie as he swipes a tongue over one of Eddie’s nipples, moving down to kiss at the space between his ribcage. Richie can feel his own dick start to strain against his boxers- remembering with vague horror that he’s _only_ wearing boxers. Eddie can feel it too, apparently, because when his hips stutter upwards and bump against him he pulls Richie’s head up, mouth wet and red and eyes wide. 

“Rich-” he says, but nothing comes after. 

“Is this okay?” Richie says, managing- to his surprise- to steel his voice into something that’s not a garbled mess.

“Yeah,” Eddie nods frantically. “Yeah it’s- okay. It’s good.”

He looks hesitant, though, taking his bottom lip between his teeth, which- _fuck_. Nearly sends Richie over the edge. 

“We don’t have to do anything,” Richie says. 

“ _No-_ no,” Eddie says quickly. “We- we can. If you want.”

“If I _want_?” Richie laughs. “Jesus, Eds. I think I might die if I don’t fuck you soon.”

Eddie flushes crimson from the bridge of his nose to the tips of his ears, and Richie panics, remembering with a shock to the stomach that Eddie hasn’t _done_ that. 

“Fuck- whatever _you_ want, Eds,” he says hastily. “I can just suck you off, we don’t have to do that, I’m sorry.”

Eddie’s blush has spread to his chest, and Richie thinks he can see his heart beat through it. He frowns for a second, before shaking his head. 

“I-” he starts, then stops. 

Richie thinks his blood has quit flowing, and he really hopes he’s not fucked this up _monumentally_ before it’s even started.

“I’m serious,” he says, reaching up to brush a hair from Eddie’s face, rubbing a thumb against his cheekbone. “Anything you want. We can stop all of it right now, if that’s what you want. I promise I won’t die.” 

Eddie lets out a short, breathy laugh, and shakes his head again. 

“I want you to-” he pauses again, waving a hand in the air. “You know.”

Richie smirks and cocks an eyebrow.

“I _know_?” he says, and Eddie rolls his eyes. “ _Do_ I know, Eddie Spaghetti?”

“Shut _up_ , don’t call me that,” Eddie says, scowling, and Richie thinks it’s the _cutest_ fucking thing in the world. “I want you to- oh, _shit_.”

He breaks off as Richie slides a hand down his side, giving his ass a squeeze, pulling his hips up to meet with Richie’s. He ducks his head down to the crook of Eddie’s neck, whispering into his ear.

“You gotta _tell_ me what you want.”

Eddie _shivers_ , letting out a moan and reaching round to Richie’s back, dragging him in, like he’s trying to get as much friction from their hips as possible. 

“Want you- to fuck me,” he gasps out, and Richie smiles against his throat. 

“Well, since you asked _so_ nicely,” he says, sitting back a little. 

Eddie rolls his eyes. “You’re _so_ irritating. Are you always this annoying in bed?”

“Technically, we’re _in_ _couch_.”

“Jesus Christ. I’ll fucking kill you,” Eddie says, but it’s breathless.

He looks- he looks _gorgeous_. His lips are kiss-swollen and glistening with spit, hair messed up, cheeks pink as fuckin’ raspberries. Richie could look at him forever. Probably would, if it weren’t for his aching boner. 

“Kinky,” he says, and with a troubling amount of difficulty he gets to his feet, reaching for Eddie’s hand. He pulls him up, and Eddie sways against him. “You good there, princess? Do I need to carry you?”

“Shut up,” Eddie says, and then he pulls Richie forwards, drags him towards his bedroom, and- _okay_. The level of determination makes any blood remaining in Richie’s brain rush to his dick. 

Eddie flops down onto Richie’s bed, as if the distance between the living room and the bedroom was all the energy left in his legs- a perfectly calculated point of fate. Richie follows, covering the length of his body, one leg either side of him, running a hand down the side of Eddie’s face. Eddie’s looking up at him with blown pupils. 

“You’re amazing. You look amazing,” Richie says. Eddie looks away, shifting underneath him, and Richie feels something tug at his chest. “Hey. You good?”

“I’m-” he says, chews at his lip, looks down to somewhere near Richie’s collarbones. “I don’t. Look amazing. Not right now.”

Richie feels like he’s been punched in the chest. 

“Eds,” he starts, but Eddie pulls a face like he’s in pain, and shakes his head.

“Don’t- I know I don’t,” he says. “I’m- I look like _shit_ , Rich-” and then, so quietly Richie can hardly make it out, “I don’t look anything like I used to.”

Richie feels, all of a sudden, like he’s never been sadder in his fucking _life_. He looks at Eddie, leans back on his knees so he can see all of him. He’s right, of course. Not about looking like shit- about looking _so_ different to how he did when Richie last saw him. The tattoos are jarring. They’re not something he thought _Eddie_ would have in another _universe_. His hair is longer, he’s thinner- and Richie still hasn’t _looked_ at the tiny scabs and scars on the insides of his arms, but he’s _seen_ them. But he’s still _Eddie_. His face still crinkles in the same way when he smiles. He still moves in that awkward, manic way that reminds Richie of a bird, which has always been so endearing. More than anything, his eyes still give away everything he’s thinking, and Richie- Richie thinks they’re the best thing about him.

“Eddie, you’re beautiful,” he says. 

Eddie finally looks at him, those eyes shining wetly. 

“Jesus fucking Christ, Eds,” Richie says. “You’re the most goddamn beautiful thing I’ve ever seen in my life.” 

Richie kisses his cheek where a slick tear track has appeared. He kisses the space between his eyebrows until the tension there eases, his jaw, his lips. Then his lips again, and again, until Eddie opens his mouth and Richie licks into it, Eddie’s head tilting back to deepen it, slack-jawed and pawing at Richie’s back. Richie slides his hands down to the waistband of Eddie’s jeans, fiddling with the button until he can get his fly undone. 

“Is this okay?” 

Eddie nods against his lips, and Richie slips his hand into Eddie’s boxers. He’s not as hard as he was a minute ago, but Richie takes his dick into hand and starts working him slowly. Eddie thrusts up against his fist, making little gasping noises as Richie moves. His wrist is at a funny angle, restricted by Eddie’s stupid pants.

“Fuckin’- get these off,” he says, pulling his hand back and hooking his fingers in the two front belt-loops. 

Eddie lifts his ass off the bed and does a little shimmy, enough for Richie to tug the jeans and his boxers down his legs as Eddie helps kick them off his feet. He’s back on Eddie’s dick the moment they’re gone, this time taking him into his mouth. Eddie bucks up and groans, hands flying to Richie’s hair.

“Shit,” he gasps, and Richie wraps a hand round the base of his cock, taking care of what his mouth won’t.

It’s a _nice_ cock, Richie notes in the back of his mind. Uncut, and Richie pulls the foreskin down from the head as he drags a long lick up the underside. Eddie whines above him, and Richie can feel his dick filling out in his mouth. He changes his angle, taking Eddie down almost until he hits the back of his throat, feeling the hands in his hair pulling.

“Jesus, _shit_ , Richie,” Eddie moans. 

Richie pulls off for a second, and Eddie fucking _glares_ at him. Richie smiles, leaning over him and grabbing a bottle of lube from his bedside draws.

“You still-”

“Fuck, yeah,” Eddie breathes.

“Oh-kay,” Richie grins, popping the cap and slicking his fingers.

He drops his head back down, taking Eddie back into his mouth, and just sucks for a minute or so more, hollowing out his cheeks around him as Eddie’s voice starts to come out in frequent _oh-oh_ ’s. When he can feel Eddie’s legs shaking either side of his head, Richie draws his hand up and strokes a wet line along his taint, before gently pressing the tip of one finger against his hole. He pulls back up off Eddie’s dick again, and Eddie audibly _groans_. Not in a good way.

“Is this okay?”

“Richie _fucking_ Tozier, if you stop one more time-”

“Okay! Jesus, I’m being nice,” Richie says, but he’s laughing. 

He opts to not suck Eddie off any more- thinking that despite his protestations, Richie is _definitely_ going to want to check in with him again. So he wraps one hand around him, pumping him languidly, breathing out deeply through his nose in concentration as he slowly slides his finger inside Eddie. 

Eddie’s breath leaves him in a quick rush, his chest stilling for a second. Richie doesn’t move.

“Hey-”

“I’m good, I’m good,” he pants, palming the bedsheets. “I’m okay, just- go slow.”

“Yeah, of course,” Richie says, pushing in just a little further. He gives Eddie’s cock a few more long strokes, eventually feeling him relax. 

“Jesus,” Eddie breathes.

“Good Jesus?”

“Yeah- yeah. Good Jesus,” Eddie says, shifting a little. “Keep going.”

So Richie does, pushing in with more patience than he thinks he’s ever had in his life, until he’s up to his last knuckle. He stops moving the one hand, working Eddie’s cock until he’s twitching in his grip. Slowly, Richie starts moving in and out, making tiny circles with his finger tip until Eddie’s pushing himself down onto it, breath coming in short, sharp gasps.

“Gimme another,” he says, and he sounds drunk.

Richie looks up at him, and he _looks_ drunk, too. He’s propped his head up on one arm, looking down at Richie with an open mouth and dark eyes.

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah.”

Richie draws out slightly, just enough to press another finger alongside the first one. It slides in with a little more ease, and Eddie’s head falls back against the pillow, eyes shutting tightly, jaw tense like a bowstring.

“Talk to me, Eds,” Richie says. “You gotta tell me if I’m doing this okay.”

“Yeah- yeah, it’s okay,” Eddie says, but he doesn’t open his eyes.

“Okay, because you kinda look like I’m hurting you.”

“You’re not fucking hurting me, Richie, I’ve just never had two fingers in my asshole before, it’s a new fucking sensation,” Eddie says, and it all comes out like one long word strung together. 

“So it’s good?” Richie says, pressing in a little further. Eddie’s mouth falls open in a perfect _O_.

“Yeah it’s fucking- _oh_ fuck,” Eddie cuts himself off as Richie twists his fingers inside him. “Gimme another.”

“Eds, you gotta take it slowly.”

“If you don’t fucking do it I will,” Eddie says, which is possibly the _hottest_ thing Richie has ever heard, _Jesus_.

He’s not stupid, though, he knows more than Eddie does in this area, so he starts moving his other hand again, stroking his cock in quicker motions until he feels that Eddie’s actually ready for him, before finally sliding a third finger in.

“Oh- _fuck_ ,” Eddie gasps. “Fuck- hang on- hold still.”

Richie freezes.

“No- shit. Keep moving your other hand,” Eddie blathers, and Richie’s mind draws a blank. “Your- keep jacking me off- but slowly. I don’t want to come.”

“Bossy,” Richie says, but he does what he’s told anyway. 

After a minute, Eddie’s arm shoots down and he grabs at the hand Richie has between his legs, simultaneously grinding his hips down onto him in little jerks. Richie starts moving, and after a while Eddie’s thrusting up into his fist, then moving back down onto his fingers with ease, moaning with every movement like a fucking porn star- and Richie thinks his dick is about to fall off if he can’t do anything with it soon. He’s also about to get hand cramp. He curls his fingers ever so slightly, at the same time that Eddie gyrates down onto them, and Eddie’s spine goes taught like a fucking catapult.

“Shit- okay, okay,” he says. “I think I’m good.”

“Oh, thank fuck,” Richie says, pulling his fingers out carefully and reaching over to his dresser for a condom. 

He slides it over his dick, grabbing the lube and slicking himself up generously, before pouring some extra into his hand and pressing a couple wet fingers back inside Eddie for good measure. Eddie keens against him, grabbing at his arms desperately. Richie pulls his hand away, placing one arm next to Eddie’s ribs on the bed for balance, using the other to hold himself in place as he presses up against Eddie’s hot, tight hole. He pushes in, so _so_ fucking slowly, checking Eddie’s face every five seconds. Richie doesn’t want to be _boastful_ , but he’s a _lot_ fucking bigger than three fingers. When he’s about half-way in, Eddie’s breath catches.

“Hey, Eds, look at me,” Richie whispers, moving his balance carefully down from his hand to his elbow so he can stroke the curve of his cheekbone. Eddie opens his eyes. “You good? We can go slower?”

“I’m okay,” he says. “I’m okay. This is good.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah, fuck. You’re- you’re big.”

Richie feels a swell of misplaced pride at that. Apparently it shows on his face, too.

“Oh, don’t look so _pleased_ with yourself,” Eddie says, and Richie can’t stop the laugh that escapes him. “I’m not the first person to say that.”

Richie wants so badly to make a _your mom_ joke, but what he _really_ wants is for Eddie to relax, so he resists with all of his willpower. 

“You’re the first person it’s meant anything from, Eddie bear,” he says, and Eddie looks like he’s _trying_ to fix his face into a scowl at the nickname, but there’s a smile threatening to crack through it. 

It seems to calm him down, at least a little. Enough that Richie finds himself moving forwards, until he’s entirely sheathed in Eddie’s body, and Eddie’s head falls back against the bed again, eyes falling shut. Richie kisses at his exposed throat, licking a line from his Adam’s apple to the hollow in the centre of his collarbones. He feels him swallow against his lips. 

“Okay,” Eddie breathes. “Yeah- okay.” 

So Richie starts moving. Small, hesitant movements at first. But soon, Eddie’s wrapping his legs around his back, pulling him in, being honestly kind of _needy-_ and Richie’s _really_ into that. He starts thrusting up into him with more determination, feeling his own release building in the pit of his groin. Eddie’s making whimpering noises in his ear, hands scrabbling for purchase on Richie’s shoulders, blunt nails dragging lines in his sweat-dampened skin 

“Fuck, _fuck_ , fuck,” Eddie’s saying, mouth hanging open obscenely. 

Richie pushes himself up a little so he can really see him. His legs are hooked around Richie, one hand sliding down from his back to cling onto his bicep, the other tugging at the bedsheets like he has a personal vendetta against them. His eyes are shut tightly, chest moving up and down in deep gasps, little moans and _oh fuck’_ s and _Richie'_ s coming out of his mouth in tumbles. 

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Richie says, dropping himself back down to mouth at Eddie’s neck. He moves one of his hands down to encircle Eddie’s dick, flush and full against his stomach, and starts to stroke him again in earnest. 

“Oh, _Jesus-_ ” he groans. “ _Fuck-_ Rich-”

Eddie opens his eyes at the last moment, holding Richie’s gaze for a second before they’re fluttering shut again, and he’s coming over Richie’s hand and both of their stomachs with a drawn out _ohhh_. Richie watches in awe, as Eddie shudders around him, arteries in his neck straining against the skin as he throws his head back, and Richie thrusts forwards a couple more times, one hand darting out to grab Eddie’s wrist and _digging_ his nails into it as he comes inside him with a half-stifled _fuck._

Richie collapses onto him, practically convulsing with exertion and the small, hot waves of aftershock. Of course, he doesn’t get long to recover before Eddie’s squirming underneath him, tapping at his shoulders.

“Rich, Richie,” he’s saying, muffled in Richie’s shoulder. “You’re heavy. You’re sweaty, come on. I feel gross.”

Richie lets out a short laugh, sitting up and pulling out of Eddie with a wince. He ties the condom off and rolls onto his back. 

“My goal in life,” he says. He’s still catching his breath. “To make my partner feel gross after sex.” 

Eddie thwacks his arm lazily. “ _Everyone_ feels gross after sex, asshole.”

“I mean, I feel pretty good, actually.”

“Well _yeah_ , that too,” Eddie says, cheeks flushed pink from orgasm or embarrassment, Richie’s not sure. He hopes it’s both. “Fuck, Rich.”

“Good ‘fuck’?” 

“Yeah, was,” Eddie says, and Richie laughs. 

He shifts onto his side and presses a kiss to his temple. Eddie’s eyes slide shut as he finally stops talking, sighing happily, leaning his head towards Richie slightly. Richie takes it as an invitation to pepper more kisses down the side of his cheek, to the curve of his ear, before finally he runs out of energy and rests his chin on Eddie’s shoulder. 

“I gotta take a shower,” Eddie says after a minute. Richie just hums in vague acknowledgement, but Eddie starts pushing his head away, sitting up and running his hands up and down his arms. “Seriously, Rich. I feel disgusting. Do you have sensitive scalp shampoo?”

Richie regards him with a raised eyebrow. “I have, like. Three-in-one shit.” 

Eddie visibly pales at that. “Are you serious? You’re serious. Jesus Christ.”

“Cat’s got some, like, conditioning shit for his fur?”

“Oh my _God_. I _hate_ you.”

•

Richie isn’t sure what he expected afterwards. Not for things to get magically better, or for him and Eddie to fall into some sort of domestic bliss. If he had to guess, he would have said a long, awkward conversation, maybe some tears- probably on his end- hopefully some kind of sense of direction by the end of it.

What he definitely didn’t predict was for things to get a lot, _lot_ worse. 

After the haze of being completely fucked-out lifts, by the time Eddie returns from the shower, Richie’s hangover has crept up- as has the gravity of sleeping with his seriously unstable childhood best friend. Who Richie is pretty sure he’s in love with. 

“I- I meant what I said,” Eddie says, as he’s sat on the edge of Richie’s bed, back in the huge t-shirt, squeezing water out of his hair with a towel. 

“That it was a good fuck?”

“No, Rich. That I know what I want.” 

Richie shifts himself up onto one elbow, suddenly hyper-aware of the fact that he’s still naked. He grabs at the blanket kicked down to his feet, pulling it over himself a little. He realises that the _entire_ conversation they’d had earlier had been banished from his mind the moment Eddie pushed him up against the wall. Suddenly, he feels heavy to his core. Like he’s about to be pulled down through the bed and through to the other side of the world.

He thinks on how fucking _easy_ it would be to say _yeah, sure_. Let’s move into a cottage on an orange grove, cook dinner for each other every night. Cat can have his own room, and you can have your own bathroom for speedballing cocaine, or some shit. 

“Eds,” Richie sighs. He pinches the bridge his nose. “I- I meant what I said, too. I can’t- I can’t have your shit on my conscience.” 

Eddie’s eyebrows shoot skyward. “ _My shit_?”

“Fuck- your _wellbeing_ , Eds.”

“I’m a grown man,” Eddie says. “I can look after myself, thanks.”

“Can you?” Richie says, and he doesn’t really _mean_ to- and this _really_ isn’t how he expected pillow talk with Eddie to go. He sits up fully, adjusting his glasses, and tries to steer the topic somewhere less disastrous. “Shit. I know you can. I’m sorry. But you gotta know that it’s- that this isn’t gonna _work_ if you’re not okay.” 

“So this is on me now?”

“No, Jesus, that’s not what I mean,” Richie groans, because _seriously_ , _how_ is he meant to have this conversation. “Eddie, I’m sober. I’m _trying_ to be sober. We can’t- I mean what’s your _plan_ , dude? I go to twelve step meetings and let you carry on killing yourself? That’s gonna kill us _both_ , Eds. Fuck. This was a bad idea.”

Eddie looks down at his hands and doesn’t say anything for a long time. Richie can feel his fucking _soul_ being ripped out of his chest by his own stupid _stupidity_. 

“Alright,” Eddie says eventually, not looking up from where he’s picking at the skin around his thumbnail. “I’ll do it.”

Richie frowns. “Do what?”

“I’ll- I’ll get sober.”

Richie feels his heart pound in his throat, watching Eddie chew on his lip, eyes trained on his fingers, and he feels- he feels _so_ fucking _sad_. 

“You gotta mean it,” he says quietly. He leans forwards, taking Eddie’s hand, unfurling his fingers to stop his picking. His thumb has started to bleed. “Don’t put that on me. _Please_ , Eds.” 

Eddie sighs, deep through his nose. He nods, his bottom lip quivering between his teeth. Richie can’t watch it anymore. 

“Jesus Christ,” he says softly, rubbing over Eddie’s knuckles with one hand, using his other to gently pry his lip free from his worrying, running his thumb over the abused skin before cupping Eddie’s cheek. He pulls him in close, kissing him and tasting copper. 

“You gotta sort yourself out, Eds,” he whispers. 

Eddie sniffles, nodding against him. “Yeah. I know.”

•

The first thing Richie does when Eddie leaves is lie on the floor, and cry. A lot. More than he remembers crying in the last _year_. The thing about addiction, Richie’s found, is that it’s a bit like watching your house burn down around you, whilst standing in an untouchable glass box. _Realistically_ , things were worse when he was going through a litre of wine a day. But he couldn’t _feel_ it. It’s like a protective suit against any kind of moral awareness. It’s watching everyone around you try to put the fire out, because they don’t want you to fucking burn to death, and you’re laughing at them whilst trying to get tanned from the flames. 

When Richie crawled out of that glass box, he felt _everything_. Every restricted emotion flooding back and beating the shit out of him. A lot of despair. A _lot_ of fucking guilt. So now, when Richie starts crying, he’s pretty sure he’s lost the ability to ever stop. 

He pulls himself together enough to roll a joint and put Dory Previn on his speakers, before flopping back down on his carpet and smoking until he can finally _breathe_. Cat meanders over and sits on his legs, which is warm and grounding, and gives him enough of an anchor to reach for his phone and ring Bev. She comes over within half an hour. 

“Do you want a cup of tea?” she says when he’s finally stopped sobbing. 

He’s lying with his head in her lap, her hands softly stroking tangles out of his curls. Richie can’t talk yet, but he doesn’t want to move so he just shakes his head. He only managed to get out a handful of words on the phone. He’s pretty sure at least three of them were _Eddie_. After what feels like an age, Bev starts to fidget underneath him.

“Your head is gigantic,” she says. “I can’t feel my thighs. Can you sit up, honey?” 

Richie sniffs and nods, hauling himself up to lean against the couch. He rubs at his eyes, dizzy as shit. 

“You gonna tell me what happened?” Bev says. 

Richie swallows. His throat is dry as a fucking nun, and he feels completely disoriented. 

“Can I have that tea?” he asks after a moment, and his voice sounds like sandpaper.

Bev smiles, getting to her feet. “Thought you’d never ask.” 

It takes three cups for Richie to finally start talking. Bev sits patiently on the edge of the couch with Richie leaning back against her legs. He tells her everything, from the stoned kiss, to Eddie bolting out of the apartment, to the conversation they had the next morning, to possibly the most _ill-advised_ sex Richie’s ever had. And he’s had a lot. He hesitates briefly over telling her about the bottle of wine, but he knows it’s written all over his face. They don’t have secrets. 

“Shit, Rich,” Bev says. Richie laughs, short and humourless. “What are you going to do now?”

“Fuck knows,” he says, rubbing at his temples. “I guess talk to him again.”

“No, Richie, I mean about the relapse.”

“Oh,” Richie says. 

He hadn’t even thought about that. The word _relapse_ feels so thick and ugly, but- yeah. He supposes that’s what it was. 

“I don’t know,” he says quietly. “I don’t- I don’t think I want to do it again. I guess I’ll ring my sponsor. Maybe go to an extra meeting a week, for a bit. Shit.” 

“Proud of you,” Bev says, leaning forward and squeezing Richie’s shoulders. He leans back into it, closing his eyes. “What about Eddie then? Do you know how he’s doing?”

Richie groans. Doesn’t open his eyes. “God knows. He’s a fucking mess.”

“Should probably check in on that,” Bev says, gently carding her hands through his hair again. 

•

Richie cancels his shows for the next three weeks. He decides to start going to more support meetings, and actually books a day _every_ _week_ to see his therapist for the first time in _forever_. He doesn’t _want_ to drink, per se. He _thinks_ about it. More than once. He _does_ want to crawl back into the warm safety of denying all responsibility for himself, sure- but he’s more aware than ever now that it’s not just himself he has to think about. He can’t exactly tell Eddie to get sober whilst sliding off the wagon himself. 

He rings him three times, leaving three different messages trying to get him to come to the extra support. Eddie never picks up, but he does send a couple texts to relieve Richie’s fretting- a bit. 

**EDDIE KASPBRAK:** **  
** **(1:37 PM)** **  
** **i’ll feel like a hypocrite i’m sorry rich**

 **EDDIE KASPBRAK:** ****  
**(2:06 PM)** **  
** **i’m ok i promise.**

Richie, somehow, doesn’t buy it. Richie doesn’t buy it when he doesn’t see Eddie for the next five days, or when he doesn’t show for the next Thursday meeting. He doesn’t buy it when he finally convinces Eddie to come walk Cat again on Friday. 

“Jesus fucking Christ, Eds,” he says when he opens the door. 

“Don’t be a dick,” Eddie says, shouldering past him and going straight for the tabby on the couch. 

“Are you high right now?” Richie says, raking his eyes over his abysmal appearance. 

Eddie looks up from Cat with a death glare. He looks almost _grey_. The sweater is back, somehow baggier than before, bony fingers poking out the sleeves covered in red cracks on his dry knuckles. 

“No, I’m not fucking high right now,” he says. Richie should have guessed, really, taking his _dire_ mood into account. His eyes are red and bruised. 

“You look like shit.”

“Thank you, I feel like it.” 

Richie groans, sitting down next to Cat with his head in his hands. “Eddie, this is really bad.”

“ _Please_ don’t, Rich, I feel sick as a dog.” 

“What did you think I was gonna say?”

Eddie sets his jaw, seemingly deep in concentration playing with Cat’s tail. Richie watches through his fingers for a minute more, before huffing out a laden breath and dropping to his knees next to him. Eddie doesn’t look up, face tense, like it’s taking all his energy to pretend he’s anywhere but here. 

“Eds,” Richie says. Eddie’s jaw ticks. “ _Eddie_.” 

When he still doesn’t look at him Richie takes his chin between his fingers, tilting his face up. It takes another thirty seconds for Eddie to finally make eye contact, and Richie feels his heart stop in his chest. 

“What?” Eddie says, but it’s a weak whisper. 

Richie sighs, wrapping his hand around the back of Eddie’s neck, bumping their foreheads together. 

“This is my fault,” he says, closing his eyes. 

He hears Eddie’s breath hitch, feels him shake his head, and Richie breaks a little. He wraps both arms around him and pulls him in tight, Eddie’s head dropping to rest on his shoulder as his hands come up to grab at Richie's shirt. Before long, Richie can feel a damp patch seeping through his collar, and Eddie starts shaking in quiet sobs. 

“Hey,” Richie soothes, running a hand up and down his spine. He feels on the brink of sobbing himself. “Hey, it’s alright.”

Eddie mumbles something into Richie’s neck that he can’t quite catch. 

“Hmm?”

“I had a fuckin’ Porsche,” comes the muffled reply, and Richie blinks, letting out an involuntary laugh. 

“You what?” 

Eddie sniffs, pushing himself off Richie’s shoulder and swiping at his eyes. “I had a fuckin’ Porsche, dude. A ‘73 911. It was blue.” 

Richie doesn’t know what to say, so he pushes a hair back from Eddie’s face and crosses his legs, listening. 

“I’m good with cars, did you know that?” Richie shakes his head. “Yeah. I really like ‘em. Back in New York I used to drive every fuckin’ day. It was my job, you know, making sure new models were safe. I had, like. Ten suits.”

Eddie’s voice starts to crack again, his gaze drifting somewhere far off that Richie can’t reach. His lip quivers, tears brimming the banks of his lashes, and Richie catches one with his thumb, trying to pull him back from wherever he’s gone. 

“Eddie, it’s okay, you can still do that shit,” he says, trying not to let panic creep into his tone. 

Eddie shakes his head against Richie’s palm, a couple more tears spilling. 

“It’s really fucking hard, Rich,” he says, and his voice sounds almost blank, far away. 

Richie _is_ panicking now. The longer Eddie stares into the distance, the colder Richie feels, so he places both hands on either side of his face and gently moves him to look at Richie completely. Eddie swallows, eyes falling somewhere near Richie’s right ear. 

“That’s what your mom said,” Richie whispers. It comes out hoarse and shaky.

Eddie looks at him for a long minute, and Richie watches with sheer _relief_ as his expression gradually levels, and a small smile starts to tug at his lips. 

“Asshole,” he croaks out. 

Richie smiles. “There he is.”

•

They walk Cat, and they walk him again on Saturday, and Richie’s pretty sure the poor thing is sick to death of them by Sunday, but Eddie keeps coming round Richie’s apartment- and he can keep an _eye_ on him, he can keep his head above water. At least for a few hours a day. 

Eddie doesn’t stay over. They don’t _do_ anything, except for when their hands brush, and for when Eddie slings his legs over Richie’s on the couch. Richie kisses him a couple of times. Chaste, on his hairline or the angle of his jaw. Sometimes the corner of his mouth, but never quite his lips. It feels a bit like walking on razor-wire, or mapping landmines at night. Richie wants so badly to grab Eddie’s face, tip it skyward, kiss him open-mouthed, press everything he wants to say directly against his tongue. But it’s a bad idea. Bad, bad, _bad_ idea. 

He settles for wrapping a hand all the way around one of Eddie’s ankles when they’re sat facing each other. Linking their little fingers just slightly, just for a minute, whilst they’re walking. Eddie starts hugging him goodbye when he leaves, and Richie thinks back to him shuddering at the concept of hugs when they’d had dinner with Bev. 

He doesn’t think about where Eddie goes when he leaves his apartment. Richie’s never been to Eddie’s place, and while he believes that he’s being _clinical_ , or whatever Eddie had said, with whatever he’s doing- because if _anyone_ is going to turn heroin into a _sterilized procedure_ it would be Eddie- he still can’t help but imagine the worst case scenarios. Eddie just tells Richie to stop watching Intervention, and that’s that. For a bit. 

“Hey, man, what was that about?” Eddie says on Monday. 

Richie puts his phone back into his pocket, reaching for his cigarettes and flopping down on the balcony chair. Eddie moves to sit on the opposite one. 

“My agent,” Richie says, lighting up. “Jus’ rearranging tour dates, ya know.” 

Eddie blinks, like, _no?_ Richie shrugs, takes a drag, leans back into the sun. 

“Yeah, I cancelled a couple shows,” he says, eyes closed. 

“What, like,” Eddie says, slow, and Richie can hear an edge in his voice. He sits up and looks at him. “‘Cos you got extra meetings, and shit?”

“I mean, yeah. And I’m not- I wasn’t planning on just _leaving_ you, Eddie.”

Eddie looks like he’s just been asked to solve Pi on the spot. He frowns, one eyebrow half-raised.

“You cancelled your tour to babysit me,” he says each word like a punch- not a question. Richie opens and closes his mouth, and Eddie stands up so quickly his chair flies back. “What the fuck, Rich? I’m not your fuckin’ _responsibility_.” 

Richie stands up too, reaching towards Eddie’s arm, but he just snatches it out of his grasp. 

“No, _fuck you,_ man,” Eddie says. “You said you wouldn’t fuckin’ treat me like glass, asshole.”

“Eds, you’re being _ridiculous_ ,” Richie says, stubbing out his cigarette and following where Eddie’s stormed into his kitchen. “You’re not- oh, _don’t_ fucking walk out again- you’re not made of glass. But you’re a _mess_ , Eddie, I don’t want to come back and hear you’ve fuckin' _died._ ”

“ _Fuck_ this,” Eddie spits, wrenching open the door, slamming it closed after him so hard it rattles the hinges.

Richie groans, flings it open, watches stunned as Eddie takes the stairs down two at a time, because _seriously_ , because _Jesus_ , because he can’t do _anything_ right. 

“Thanks for _shutting the door_ this time,” he yells after him. “ _Vast_ fucking improvement- maybe next time we can try having a fucking _conversation_!” 

Eddie doesn’t reply. Richie kicks the door frame on his way back in. 

•

Richie gets the call at two in the morning. 

He managed to drift off around midnight, exhausted from frustration and sunstroke from smoking out his mood on the balcony too long. He wakes to his phone buzzing by his head and Cat yowling at his feet. Richie grumbles, shifting the animal away from him and rolling over, staring blearily at the phone screen for a minute before his sleepy eyes register who’s calling. When he makes out Eddie’s name, he jolts upwards. 

“Eds?” he says, a thick furl of nerves tightening in his stomach. “It’s 2am, man.”

“Yeah, I’m, uh. I’m outside your door,” Eddie’s voice comes through the receiver. 

Richie takes a second to process. “What?”

“I don’t have my fuckin’ keys, man,” Eddie says, and Richie groans, throwing back the covers and pulling on some nearby discarded boxers. “I think I lost them on the beach.”

Richie hangs up as he opens his door. Eddie’s leaning against the frame, looking half-asleep, half like he’s got _malaria_ or some shit. He walks in past Richie, heading straight for the couch, throwing a hand over his eyes. Richie stands with his arms crossed, until Eddie peeks at him through his fingers. 

“Rich, _please_ , I’m really sorry,” he says, and he sounds _strung out_ . “Please can I crash, I feel _awful_.” 

Richie rolls his eyes, sighs, before nodding towards his room. “You don’t have to take the couch,” he says.

A tight smile tugs at Eddie’s lips as he drags himself up, follows Richie to his room, strips down to his boxers and crawls in beside him. Richie maybe drifts off again, but it’s not long before he’s becoming aware of Eddie writhing next to him, and he sits up, peers over Eddie’s shoulder to try catch a glimpse of his face. For the most part it’s buried in a pillow, but Richie can just about see the screwed up features, sweat beading on his forehead. He brushes a damp lock of hair away from his eyes. 

“Eds,” he whispers, and Eddie moans. “Eds, I think you should go to hospital.”

Eddie shakes his head. “I’ve just got a cold,” he says, and it’s muffled in the sheets. “Was walkin’ around for- fuckin’ ages. Looking for keys.” 

Richie doesn’t believe him, but sits in silence for a while, gently rubbing circles between Eddie’s shoulders. When his shivers turn into full-bodied trembling, Richie pulls the blanket off their legs, goes to his fridge and grabs a bottle of water.

“Hey,” he kneels in front of Eddie’s face, pushing his hair back. “Drink this.” Eddie nods, lifting himself up enough to take a few wobbly sips. “Eds, you don’t have a cold. I'm not stupid.” 

He squeezes his eyes shut, teeth chattering. Richie’s own hands have started to shake. 

“I don’t know how to deal with this, dude,” he whispers. “I think I need to ring the hospital.”

“Please don’t, Rich,” Eddie grinds out, eyes still shut. “I _hate_ them. Fuckin’- pathogens. Germs and shit. All over them.”

Richie bites the inside of his cheek. He thinks, briefly, about ringing his sponsor. He knows _he’s_ done this before. But it’s nearly four, and Richie isn’t sure that he deals in _once_ _removed_ crisis calls. Eddie’s sunk back down onto the pillow, sweat running in thin rivulets down his face. 

“Tell me what to do,” Richie pleads. 

“I’m fine,” Eddie says, wholly unconvincingly. 

Richie thinks, maybe, it’s some kind of ingrained aversion to admitting he’s ill. Some sort of left-over reflex to push away his mom, or his ex, or _anyone_ else who’s told him he’s _sickly_ his whole life. That familiar sense of overdue anger creeps up Richie’s spine. He’s pretty fucking fed up with it by now. He says nothing for a minute, watching as Eddie tries to breathe in through his nose and out through his mouth. 

“Eds, you look like you’re gonna puke,” Richie says. 

Eddie doesn’t reply, his lips set in a thin line. After a moment, though, he nods stiffly, which Richie _honestly_ wasn’t expecting, and he leaps into action so fast he trips over his own feet. He hooks one arm around Eddie’s ribs, pulling him up and half-carrying him to the bathroom. He winces slightly at the sound of Eddie’s bare knees connecting with the hard, tiled floor as he collapses in front of the toilet, and he drops down next to him, rubbing up and down his back as he starts to vomit what little he’s got in him. After what feels like a _forever_ amount of time retching, Eddie coughs a long strand of spit and falls back against Richie’s front, breathless. Richie catches him against his chest. He rubs his own temples- because he’s got a fucking _headache_ , because he’s _tired_ to the _core,_ because he's not equipped to run a makeshift _detox_ centre from his en-suite.

“Eds, I’m taking you to hospital,” he says, when too much time passes until Eddie’s breathing normally. 

“I”ll fuckin’ kill you,” Eddie says weakly. “I’m serious, Rich, I’m not going.” 

“Well _fuck_ , Eddie, what do I _do_ here?” Richie says. It comes out louder than he wants, and Eddie pulls himself up until he’s sat leaning against the base of the sink, shooting Richie what he’s sure would be an impressive glare if he wasn’t _green_. 

“There’s a-” Eddie starts- stops- chews his lip. “I’ve got a number. On my phone.”

Richie blinks. His head fills with white noise. 

“I’m sorry,” he says slowly. “Do you want me to _score_ for you right now?” 

“Just-”

Richie- he can’t _believe_ this shit. You couldn’t make this up if you fuckin’ _tried_.

“Jesus _Christ_ , Eddie,” he cuts him off. “You’re a real _fuckwad_. No fuckin’ way. I’ll sooner drag you to a psych ward.”

“Do _not_ fuckin’ yell at me right now, Rich, a _no_ would be enough,” Eddie says, and Richie _stares_ at him as his head falls back against the sink, eyes closing, before he shudders and rolls to spit into the toilet again.

He looks so fucking _young_ , Richie thinks. The blue light of his bathroom makes the freckles on the bridge of his nose look darker than they usually do. It doesn’t seem fair, that Richie feels _ancient_ right now. He huffs, getting to his feet and reaching into his bathroom cabinet, grabbing a small, orange bottle. 

“Here,” he says, thrusting it at Eddie as he cracks one eye open. “Don’t eat them all, they’re my actual _prescription_.”

Eddie takes the bottle and frowns at it. “Xanax?” 

“Sorry I don’t keep black tar in my fucking house,” Richie says.

He leaves Eddie on the bathroom floor as he walks back to his bedroom, crawls into bed, tries to calm the fuck down. He can’t tell how much time’s passed when he feels the bed dip next to him. His head is still buzzing, and he’s nearly shaking too much himself to notice that Eddie isn’t anymore. Not as hard as before, at least. He hears him sniff wetly a couple times, though, and Richie sighs, rolling over to wrap one arm around Eddie’s waist, pulling him close. He places a small kiss to the back of Eddie's neck before he can help himself. 

“I’m not fuckin’ doing this again, Eds,” he mumbles into his hair. 

“I’m sorry,” Eddie whispers. 

Eddie falls asleep after a while. His spine pressed tight against Richie’s front, one of Richie’s hands wrapped around his small wrist, running the pad of this thumb softly against the pulse point. Richie doesn’t sleep for a long time. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm sorry i promise things get happier from here jdsjfknk 
> 
> [this](https://www.nweuro.com/1973-porsche-911t-hot-rod-2) is eddie's car and [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xNRdXSHMfM) is the dory previn song richie listens to. yes, all he ever wears around his house is boxers and a t-shirt, it's warm leave him alone. yes, he's rich and still has a cracked phone screen, he's gay leave him alone.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the update gap! expect another because i do have a degree to finish hehe bless u guys for your patience xxx

Richie’s bucket list gains another tick in a spectacularly disappointing fashion the next morning. He’s dreamed of sharing a shower with Eddie probably at _least_ , like, _sixteen_ times the last twenty years. Rough estimate.

What he _hadn’t_ dreamed of was manhandling a 5”9 deadweight into his shower, battling a cat out of the way, and perching on the edge of the tiles as opposed to _under_ the water, the knees of his joggers growing steadily damper along with his already soggy mood. Eddie says fuck all as Richie shampoos his hair. He says little more than fuck all when Richie gives up leaning over him at an awkward angle, undressing and clambering into the shower with him. He hauls Eddie up against his chest, feels him go limp under the hot spray, like he might spiral down the drain if Richie weren’t holding onto him tight. 

He gives Eddie another Xanax when he starts shaking again. Leaves him in the bathroom as Richie strips the bed, remakes it, feeds Cat. He pulls Eddie back down under the covers when he pads into the bedroom, sleep-clouded and wan-looking. Richie tucks a strand of hair behind his ear, lying close enough for their noses to touch. He breathes out deep through his nostrils, closing his eyes.

“You know you gotta go to treatment, right?” he says quietly.

Eddie sniffs and nods, saying nothing. 

Richie grits his teeth. “Hey, where have you gone? I’d pay to shut you up, normally.”

Eddie lets slip a fractured laugh. “I’m tired as fuck, Rich.”

“Yeah, I bet.” Richie says. He reaches down between them for Eddie’s hand, bringing it up to press a kiss to his knuckles. “I know somewhere good. Okay?”

“Yeah,” Eddie sighs. “Okay.”

•

Richie loses his voice trying to convince Eddie to go for the full thirty days. It only results in anxiety attacks on both sides of the argument, and eventually, _finally_ , Eddie agrees to the week long detox and outpatient program. Richie’s not exactly _thrilled_ , but beggars and choosers, and all that shit.

He tells his therapist all this when Eddie’s been gone three days. 

Richie doesn’t _love_ his therapist.

He’s a kindly man, around sixty, with tied-up hair that’s somehow still clinging to its natural redness amongst brush strokes of silver. But Richie kinda gets the feeling that he’s a little… left of field. Maybe it’s his own fault for finding a therapist through a recommendation at his local dispensary, but Richie’s pretty sure _he’s_ meant to be the one getting stoned, not the licensed professional. 

Still, he listens, which Richie guesses is a good start. He doesn’t seem to judge when Richie ends up telling him far more than he’d expected. Which, again, he guesses is part of the whole therapist deal. But Richie’s got a lot of shit to unpack when it comes to judgment. 

“It’s not like I was _planning_ on fucking him,” he finishes off, gesticulating at nothing in particular. “But it just happened. And, I dunno. I feel guilty. Like I’ve shipped him off to a bunch of strangers because I don’t want the responsibility.” 

“Richie, can I ask you something?”

Richie blinks. “Well, sure. Aren’t you meant to?” 

His therapist smiles, leaning forwards a little. “Do you think any of your friends should have taken you in when you were going through withdrawals?”

“No, I was an asshole,” Richie says without a second to think on it. “But Bev did. She babysat me for, like, a week.”

“Do you resent her for sending you to rehab when she did?”

Richie opens his mouth to reply, like of _course not_ , like _don’t be ridiculous_ , but he shuts it with an audible click. 

“So why do you think Eddie will resent you?”

“Because he’s not _like_ me,” Richie says, slumps back, sighs. “He’s not _done_ this before, dude. Because I basically launched myself at him, and _then_ told him nothing could happen until he was sober. I’m a fuckin’ hypocrite, doc.” 

“Richie, I’m gonna be straight with you,” his therapist says, clicking his pen absently. Richie watches it instead of looking at his face. “It sounds to me like you’ve made one of the hardest and most mature decisions anyone can make. I think you should take this as a victory.”

Richie laughs bitterly. “Sure. I’ll break out the fucking bunting.”

•

By the sixth day, Richie thinks he’s gone insane. 

Eddie told him not to visit, and whilst Richie gets it, he really does, because shit if _he_ didn’t want anyone to see _him_ detoxing- Richie’s still going insane. Bev practically breaks down his door after he ignores her seventeenth text in three hours. 

“Get up,” she says, pulling back his blinds.

Richie groans from where he’s lying on the couch, pressing his face further into the cushion. It still smells of Eddie. Mostly of Cat, but if Richie closes his eyes and pictures his face, it smells a bit like Eddie, too. He might be feeling a _little_ pathetic. 

“Come on, your Cat’s starving to death,” Bev says, as Richie drags himself into a sitting position. 

“I fed him this morning, asshole,” he says, voice croaking from disuse. 

“You’re starving to death, then.”

“Bev, last night I ate four cheeseburgers in one go.” 

Bev rolls her eyes. Richie watches as she walks to his kitchen, turns on his coffee machine, goes for the cupboard with the mugs. Richie smiles despite himself. He likes the way Bev fits in his apartment. She’d almost moved in once, before he found out that she was actually the _messiest_ person on the planet. Bev says she changed her mind because she got a good offer on her penthouse, or whatever. Richie will always say it’s because she’s a slob. 

Richie accepts the coffee semi-graciously, moving up a little so she can sit down next to him. Bev rests a head on his shoulder, stroking his knee for a minute before sniffing dramatically.

“Rich, when was the last time you had a shower?” 

Richie tenses. He thinks of Eddie pressed against his front. “A couple days, I guess.” 

Bev squeezes his hand. 

“Hey,” she says, then, when Richie won’t look at her, “ _Hey_. Go have a shower. Then show me how to bake that lemon drizzle you did ages ago, because Ben’s coming over and I can’t show him my _cooking_.”

Richie’s mouth drops open. “Wait, _Ben_ Ben?”

Bev’s already ushering him off the couch, pulling her legs up to her chest and pushing his back with her feet. 

“ _Derry_ Ben?” 

“Shower! Then gossip.”

•

Turns out, Bev is _dating_ Derry Ben. Richie hadn’t realised that L.A. was such a natural progression from small-town Maine, but here four of them are, apparently. He knows Bill was here last year for filming, but Richie’s pretty sure he’s rediscovering himself in Bali, or something equally cringe, now. According to Bev, Ben’s got some big architectural project going on in Hollywood, and is stopping in the hills for six months. _Or longer_ , Bev adds with a rare and poorly disguised sappy look in her eyes.

Teaching her how to bake a very fucking simple cake ends up thoroughly taking Richie’s mind off Eddie for a good few hours. She’s _truly_ shit, it turns out. By 6pm they’ve got something that vaguely resembles a lemon drizzle, flour everywhere, and what feels like the last threads of Richie’s sanity. 

“Want me to stay?” Bev says after, lying on Richie’s floor, sharing half the items on Taco Bell’s menu. 

Richie wipes sour cream from his mouth and stretches out on the couch. “Nah. I gotta get up super early, and you snore like you’re making a career out of it.”

“That’s _your_ career,” Bev says, and Richie kicks her. “So long as you’re sure?”

Richie grimaces, thin, lips pressed together. “Yeah, Bev. Thanks, though.” 

She nods, putting a hand on his thigh. “You’ll be fine. Both of you.”

Richie nods wordlessly, picking at his nachos. He’s not that hungry anymore. 

•

“This is so stupid,” he says through gulps of air. “This should be the other way around.”

Eddie laughs. “You want _me_ to be sobbing?”

“I’m not sobbing, asshole.” 

“Yeah, alright.”

Richie swipes at his eyes underneath his glasses, sniffing. They’d made it to the first traffic light after he’d gone to get Eddie before he’d started tearing up. Not _sobbing_. The only thing is, it’s nearly 10pm and he’s not really stopped since. Richie sits up, runs his hands over his face, lets out a whoosh of air, and gets a handle on himself.

“Okay, I’m good. Sorry.”

“You’re the wettest person I know,” Eddie says, then, quickly, “Don’t fucking give me a mom joke, Rich, please.”

Richie bites his lip. He looks at Eddie, who’s fixing him with a stony glare. Richie feels his cheek twitch with an involuntary smile. After he feels like he might burst, Richie stage-whispers, looking off to one side like he’s breaking some fourth wall;

“That _would_ be _her_ , actually.”

Eddie throws the apple core he’s just finished with at him. “The fuck are you talking to?”

“My audience!” Richie says, batting the core away like a tennis ball, winking at Cat. 

Eddie rolls his eyes, stands up and stretches his arms above his head. Richie can’t help his gaze falling on the expanse of stomach as Eddie’s t-shirt rises up; the trail of dark hair against lightly tanned skin. He almost bursts into tears again. When he’d rocked up at the detox centre, and Eddie had emerged in the doorway with his suitcase and a sheepish look, Richie thinks he blacked out for a second. Eddie looks the most- the most _Eddie_ he has since he came to that first meeting. Still rail-thin, and scruffier than he ever was as a teenager. But his face has lost that runaway quality of bleached paper about it. The shadows under his eyes look less like contusions. More like a week of late nights. 

Richie’s not dumb, though. He watches the way Eddie still doesn’t eat enough, really. The way he looks on the edge of speaking at brief moments, before changing his mind and falling silent. The way his fingers scratch reflexively at his forearms. 

“You wanna talk about it yet?” 

Eddie pulls a face, then shakes his head. “Not really.”

Richie nods. “Hey, whenever, man. You, uh, you want me to drive you home?”

Eddie looks down at his hands, sets his jaw. When he meets Richie’s eyes, he looks nervous- but sure of himself. It’s a look Richie’s fucking _missed_. “I don’t want to go back there tonight. Is it really fucking weird if I stay here?” 

“No, Eds,” Richie shakes his head so fast he feels dizzy. “No, of course not. Stay as long as you want. Fuck it, stay forever.”

“Jeez, Rich,” Eddie says, looking away, going pink across the bridge of his nose. 

“Eds,” Richie says, taking in a deep breath. Eddie glances up, face open and nervous. “Rent’s ninety a night.”

Eddie groans, kicking Richie’s arm. “Asshole. _Cheap_ asshole.”

“Oh, the asshole is extra,” Richie says, grinning.

“Fuck you, man.” 

•

Richie takes the couch. He doesn’t suggest Eddie bunk in his bed with him, and in turn Eddie doesn’t suggest it either. Richie figures letting him set his own boundaries is the best thing for it, even if accidentally catching him pulling his shirt over his head to get into Richie’s bed _does_ mean he has to go for an emergency midnight jack off in the bathroom. 

By 1am Richie’s given up on sleep. He scrolls aimlessly through Grindr, before feeling nauseatingly guilty over it, and deletes the app with a huff. Which leaves him watching YouTube videos with Cat until the tabby dozes off on his chest. 

“Hey.”

Richie almost throws his phone across the room. Cat shrieks at his startled jerking, digs his claws in, and Richie only just manages to rip out his headphones and dislodge Cat’s paws without major injury. He scrubs at his eyes, reaching for his glasses. Eddie’s leaning against the bedroom door, eyebrows raised, cast in a soft, blue half-light. 

“Christ,” Richie says, sitting up. “You trying to kill me?”

He blinks, eyes focussing. Eddie maybe _is_ trying to kill him, actually, because all he’s got on is his boxers, hair sticking up on one side. Richie rakes his eyes over his chest, gaping slightly at the tattoos, the dusting of hair, the freckles on his shoulders. He thinks about how Eddie wouldn’t be seen without a t-shirt, two weeks ago. That familiar stab of emotion welling up in Richie’s throat, combined with his mouth watering slightly, leaves him trying to disentangle his horny thoughts from his proud ones with such concentration that he completely misses Eddie’s reply.

He gulps, shaking himself out of it. “Huh?”

“I said I wouldn’t _announce_ myself if I was, would I, genius?” Eddie says, crossing his arms. He clears his throat. “I was actually- uh. I was wondering if you wanted to come in. To bed. Can’t sleep.” 

Richie pushes himself up, frowning. “You sure?”

“Yeah, I wouldn’t fuckin’ ask otherwise,” Eddie says all in one breath. 

“Alright. Bossy,” Richie says.

Eddie bites his lip, nods one, turns back around into the bedroom. Richie gathers himself with a tight feeling in his chest, and follows. He doesn’t say anything else, closing the door behind him, hesitating for a second before crawling into the bed next to Eddie- who’s lying on his back, stiff as a board. 

“So,” Richie says. There’s a sharp wedge of tension between his lungs. “You normally sleep like a mummy?” 

“I’m gonna kiss you,” Eddie says, matter-of-fact, head snapping to one side to look at Richie. 

Richie thinks, for a second, that he’s misheard. “What?”

“My therapist says I gotta be more assertive,” Eddie says, staring Richie down with determination, and, hidden just behind it, something Richie recognises as uncertainty. Searching his face for approval, still. “That I need to be clearer about what I want.”

Richie swallows thickly.

“Well, fuck,” he says. “Like anyone could stop you doing shit you wanted when we were younger.” 

Eddie nods against the pillow. “Right. She says I’m a- a _deeply driven_ person. That it’s not- that’s not changed, I just gotta- I just gotta-”

Eddie’s eyes are fixed on Richie’s lips. Richie’s kind of forgotten how to ask for things himself. 

“Your therapist tell you to kiss me, Eds?” he says, and it’s hardly a whisper. 

“No,” Eddie says, just as quiet. “It’s my choice.”

“You’re doing a shit job of it, so far,” Richie says. 

Eddie looks up from his mouth, then, as if to prove a point, he’s propping himself up on one elbow and promptly pressing his lips to Richie’s. Richie’s mouth drops open against it immediately, hands automatically coming round to hold Eddie’s waist as he crawls on top of him, lithe thighs all taught muscle either side of Richie’s torso. Eddie slips his tongue into Richie’s mouth, fingers knotting in his hair, and Richie feels like he’s been flung out to sea. It’s nothing like before, not tentative or shy. Instead, Eddie’s taking exactly what he wants, breaking away only to remove Richie’s glasses from the equation, plastering himself against his chest and biting Richie’s bottom lip. 

Richie’s so stunned by it he barely kisses back, at first. But then Eddie’s grinding his hips down and something sparks off in his mind. Richie’s hands go from his ribs to his thighs, stroking them up and down, digging his fingertips in, gasping into Eddie’s mouth as he kisses him with fervor. Eddie smells a bit like antiseptic, lime shower-gel, and the perpetual memory of sun sweat that clings to everybody in California. Richie feels drunk with it. 

“Fuck, Eds,” he says into Eddie’s mouth, gripping one of his skinny biceps and pulling away enough to breathe. Eddie looks offended, eyes black in the low light, blurry as shit without Richie’s glasses, but definitely frowning. “We should take this slow.”

“Sure, I can do that,” Eddie says, dipping his head back down to kiss at Richie’s stubble.

“No- shit,” Richie laughs, breathless, pushing Eddie off gently until he’s sat back on his calves, still straddling Richie’s middle. “I mean we should take _it_ slow. Like, maybe _not_ fuck on your first night out of rehab.”

“It was a _detox_ ,” Eddie says, face all hard lines. “And I’m not a teenage virgin.”

“Eddie, we’ve had sex exactly once,” Richie says. He almost can’t believe the words are coming out of his mouth. He hopes his therapist gives him a fucking sticker for this. He takes a loose grip of Eddie’s ankles, rubbing his thumbs against the bone there. “Which wasn’t, like. Super fucking smart of us, let’s be honest. And- _and_ ,” he holds a hand up as Eddie opens his mouth, “I’m really fuckin’ proud of you for being, like, _assertive_. Honestly. Like I could cry. I _might_ cry. But if we wanna do this, we should do it, y’know. Normally.” 

Eddie raises an eyebrow, but his indignant look softens a little. 

“Are you about to ask my dad for his permission to date me?” he asks, deadpan, and Richie flicks his heel. 

“I’m about to kick you out of my bed,” he says, and Eddie smirks. “I’m saying I want to do this _properly_. Don’t you?”

Eddie blinks, brows drawn. He climbs off of Richie with a sigh, flops down next to him, fingers finding his in the dark and linking tightly. “What are you suggesting?”

Richie turns to face him. He grins, then, because he can’t fucking help it. Because maybe he’s been knocked into a parallel universe, or he’s died, and not quite gone to heaven, but there are dickheads in gold robes at the gates, waiting, like, _you’re nearly there_. 

“How about a date?”

When Eddie smiles back at him, it reaches his eyes. 

•

Eddie’s an awful sleeper, as it turns out. 

Richie wakes for some reason at around 5am, turns over, and sees Eddie’s side of the bed illuminated by a dulled, artificial light. He props himself up, leaning over slightly, to see that he’s scrolling through Buzzfeed articles on his phone, too quickly to really be reading them.

“Hey,” Richie whispers. “You okay?”

Eddie makes a little _oh_ sound, like he hadn’t noticed Richie stirring. He turns to face him, rubbing at his eyes.

“Yeah,” he says, and his voice is thick with exhaustion. “Sorry, I thought my brightness was down enough. I should have said something.”

Richie frowns. “About what, Eds?”

Eddie opens his mouth to respond, but to Richie’s horror, his lip wobbles, and the only noise he gets out is a small whimper. 

“Hey, hey,” Richie says, confused, feeling his stomach drop as he wraps Eddie up in his arms. “What’s going on?”

“Sorry,” Eddie croaks into Richie’s chest. “I’m just- sleep’s hard right now.”

Richie sighs with sudden understanding, hushing him as he feels sticky tears slick the dip in his collarbone. He strokes Eddie’s hair with what he _hopes_ is a comforting rhythm. Eddie’s exhales shake like he’s trying to get his breathing under control, and Richie bites his lip, trying not to tear up himself. It’s like a knee-jerk reaction- whenever Eddie crumbles Richie starts to crack, too. Eddie rarely cried as a kid. Always so determined to prove himself, despite none of them ever _needing_ him to. He’d go bright red and start shouting whenever he was upset, until everyone would laugh at him for being like a snappy little dog, and he’d end up either throwing shit or laughing too. Richie thinks, maybe, he’d seen him tear-streaked and puffy-eyed after coming back from long walks with Bev a few times. No one ever really asked about them- the unspoken agreement that it wasn’t shit you could make fun of. Which, in hindsight, Richie knows was most likely shitty-parent solidarity. Still, he could count the amount of times he’d seen Eddie cry on two hands. Richie, however, would always weep at the drop of a hat. 

“It’s okay, Eds, shh,” Richie murmurs, kissing his temple. He doesn’t think Eddie _wants_ to talk about it, not yet. But all he has to offer is sympathy. “I get it. Couldn’t sleep for shit without a bottle of red, either. It gets easier, I promise.”

Eddie sniffs against Richie’s neck. He snakes a hand around Richie’s waist, clinging to him like a life raft. It’s reassuring, a little. He’s not pulling away at the hint of a daunting conversation. Richie doesn’t push it, though. He just holds Eddie close to him, turning him over and curling around his spine, both arms circling his shoulders, face pressed into his hair. Eventually, he stops trembling, breathing evening out.

“You want a chamomile tea?” Richie says. 

“Yeah, thanks,” Eddie says, clearing his throat.

Richie kisses his shoulder and squeezes his wrist before climbing out of bed to flick on the kettle. His movements are clumsy with sleep, and he narrowly avoids a mug avalanche, waking Cat in the process. When he sets the tea on the bedside table, Eddie sits up against the pillows with a small smile.

“Thanks,” he says again. 

He picks it up, blows on it, watching the steam with a glazed look. Richie gets back into bed next to him, twist of concern refusing to unwrite itself in his chest. 

“It’s okay, Eddie,” he says. “It _does_ get easier. I swear.” 

Eddie nods. Says nothing. 

“Hey, come on,” Richie says, plucking the drink from his hands and putting it back down. He cups Eddie’s face, turning his head gently to get him looking at him. “Talk to me, buddy. About anything.” 

Eddie takes a deep breath. Richie wants so badly to iron out the crease between his brows. He presses the pad of his thumb to it, rubs at it until Eddie’s face relaxes, just a bit. Just enough. 

“Do you still have those Xanax?” Eddie says, so quiet Richie only barely catches it.

“Do I still have my anxiety meds?” he asks. “Yeah, Eds. But I don’t think-”

“No, I wasn’t gonna ask,” Eddie says, eyes going wide, shaking his head against Richie’s fingers. “I was- I was wondering if you could put them somewhere else. Don’t tell me.”

Richie’s mouth drops open as his brain catches up. He feels a surge of- of _something_. Some strange combination of hurting and relief. 

“You gonna raid my stash?” he cracks, going for levity, missing slightly.

“I don’t know,” Eddie says, raw and frayed. 

It’s so honest that Richie feels like he’s been gutted. Eddie looks down, face flushed, and Richie feels overwhelmed with the urge to burst into tears. He pulls Eddie into a tight hug, screws his eyes shut. 

“Yeah, Eds,” he gets out. “I’ll put them somewhere else.”

Eddie chokes his thanks into Richie’s arm, staying there for a while. Richie yawns against him after a few minutes, and Eddie chuckles.

“I’m sorry. I’ve fuckin’ kept you up all night.”

“Eds, you’re welcome to keep me up _all_ night long.”

Richie freezes at the realisation of what that _sounds like_ , but Eddie bats at his arms, pulling back with an exasperated smile, and swipes at his wet eyelashes. “Changed your tune.”

“Hey, I meant- reading,” Richie backtracks as Eddie reaches for the cup of tea, one eyebrow raised over the rim. “Or braiding each other’s hair. Now you’ve got this fantastic mop.” 

Eddie ducks away from Richie’s grabbing fingers, nearly throwing tea over the sheets. Richie laughs, sinking into the sheets and closing his eyes, knot of nerves finally loosening. After a while, he hears Eddie set the mug down, falling back on the pillow. Richie’s almost drifted off when he next speaks.

“Thank you. For the tea.” A hesitation, then, “And for the other thing.”

Richie smiles against the pillow. “Get some sleep, Eddie.”

He says nothing more. Within ten minutes, Richie hears soft snoring before he’s out for the count.

•

Their date is a couple days later. Richie feels like a fucking kid, the word _date date date_ rolling around his mind as he drives across the city. Richie’s never been to Eddie’s place. It’s downtown, and from the outside it looks almost like a student pad. Small and plain. He pulls up on the street, obnoxiously blares his car horn a couple times, eliciting several death glares from pedestrians. Richie only feels a _bit_ bad about the old lady that jumps out of her skin. 

Eddie comes half-sprinting out the apartment block doors, covering his face with one hand as he gets into the passenger side. 

“Asshole,” he says. “Remind me why I allowed you to pick me up again?”

“Because you wanted to make it a proper date,” Richie says with a smug grin- _date_ , with _Eddie-_ turning the keys in the engine. “Next time I’ll blast Peter Gabriel from my boombox.” 

“You wouldn’t fucking dare, Rich.”

Richie throws a look at Eddie, eyebrow raised and smirking like it’s a challenge. Eddie groans, but doesn’t quite manage to hide his smile. They drive in silence for a few minutes, L.A. traffic blissfully forgiving for once, the afternoon sun flooding the interior of the car in bright orange. Richie’s got the roof down, and Eddie’s stretched back in his seat, eyes closed against the breeze. It’s distracting as _shit_ , honestly.

“You look like a painting,” Richie says. 

Eddie doesn’t look at him, says; “Eyes on the road, Richie.” 

Richie grins, reaching into the glove compartment and pulling out a packet of cigarettes. He lights up, one hand on the steering wheel, tapping out _In Your Eyes_ with buzzing fingers. 

“Dude, you smoke in your car?” Eddie says, sitting up straighter, turning around to stare down the offending cigarette.

“There’s no fuckin’ roof, Eds,” Richie says, making a left turn.

Eddie looks disapproving, but Richie still smiles. He’s pretty sure a fucking avalanche couldn’t wipe it off his face at this point. Eddie grabs the aux cord poking out of the car radio and plugs his phone in, and Richie’s chest swells, like _yeah baby, make yourself at home, carve yourself into every fucking sliver of my little life, you belong in it_. He sticks on something that Richie recognises immediately, although he doesn’t expect it.

“Bro, you listen to Fiona Apple?”

Eddie turns to look at him. “Why does that shock you?”

“I dunno,” Richie shrugs. “Figured you’d be all Beach Boys and shit.”

“ _Tidal_ is a seminal album,” Eddie says, offended, turning the volume up on _Shadowboxer_ as far as it will go. Then, after a long pause; “What’s wrong with the Beach Boys?”

Richie slaps the steering wheel with a laugh. “I fuckin’ knew it.”

He catches Eddie scowling out of the corner of his eye before he settles back into his seat, and then it’s nothing but music and distant car horns for twenty minutes. Richie thinks _this_ could be the whole date, making a mental note to pencil in a day where they can just drive for hours, two albums each, stopping off at the beach. Sooner or later, though, they hit their today-date destination. 

Richie pulls up and cuts the engine, hops out, and slides across the hood of his car to open the passenger side door. Eddie’s eyes boggle as he steps out, blinking rapidly with his mouth hanging open. 

“You’re insane,” he says. 

“Just trying to be chivalrous, Eds, I’ll go fuck myself next time,” Richie says. 

“Please do. That was so embarrassing.”

Richie hits Eddie’s arm. “Yeah, alright.”

“Seriously, your legs are _way_ too long for that shit. Like Bigfoot trying to be smooth.”

“You’re just jealous that these legs mean I can reach top shelves.” 

Eddie goes to hit him back, but Richie ducks out of the way, laughing and running into the bowling alley.

•

It’s late on a Wednesday, and most of the lanes are empty. Richie _loves_ bowling. He’s _awful_ at it, gigantic limbs and crap eyesight making for zero coordination. Still, he loves the whole experience of it. Especially in L.A., where each alley is either gaudy as shit, eighties tunes and sticky floors, or old Hollywood, with amber coloured wood floors and cocktails that come in the _correct_ cocktail glasses. Not that he’s reaching for those anymore. The milkshakes are still pretty good, though. It’s the second alley genre that he’s brought Eddie too. It’s tucked away in the hills, in a gorgeous old building with exposed bricks and low lighting. It’s classy in a way that feels authentic- and Richie’s pretty sure Eddie wouldn’t have appreciated the sticky floors.

That doesn’t stop him from holding the rented shoes at arm’s length.

“Spaghetti, would you _please_ relax,” Richie says, taking his pair and kicking off his own sneakers. “And get out the way.”

Eddie whips his head around to see a family of five behind him, nodding graciously towards them before glaring at Richie, sitting down next to him to tug the shoes on. 

“I’m bringing my own next time.”

Richie beams at _next time_. “Of course you have your own bowling shoes.” 

“They fit right!”

“Aw, are they from the kids section?”

Eddie smacks Richie with the sneaker in his hand. “I have _average_ sized feet. You have _massive_ feet. It’s all about perspective.”

“You know what they say about big feet,” Richie says with a wink. 

“Jesus Christ,” Eddie says. “It’s been _in_ me, Rich, I know.” 

Richie chokes on an inhale as the family of five turn to look at them with horrified expressions, and Eddie goes beet red. 

“Big _shoes_ , Eddie, _God_. Don’t be _vulgar_. Sorry about him.”

“I hate you _so_ much,” Eddie hisses, tossing his shoes at the counter and heading for the lanes.

Eddie whips his ass, obviously. He gets three strikes in a row, and Richie just about racks up enough points for it not to be a _totally_ embarrassing defeat. It’s not like he’s super _focussed_. He watches Eddie bowl from the booth by their lane like it’s the best damn movie he’s ever seen. Eddie sticks his tongue out a little when he concentrates, back curving as he aims, shifting his body forwards as he throws, bent at his waist. It’s a pretty good view from behind, honestly. Richie wonders when Eddie started wearing such tight jeans. He wants to marry whoever invented them. Eddie straightens up triumphantly as he knocks down all but one pin, spinning around with his arms crossed and a smug grin. It drops when he sees Richie’s face, eyes narrowing in suspicion. 

“What?”

Richie shakes himself, clearing his throat. “Nothing.”

“You were staring at me.”

“Yeah,” Richie admits. 

Eddie blushes, sitting down next to Richie, close enough for their thighs to touch. Richie looks down at their hands as Eddie slowly links their fingers in his lap, low enough that no one looking over could see. Richie knows neither of them are ready for that. It feels like moving forwards, anyway. 

•

They don’t say much on the drive back to Richie’s. He can practically _feel_ Eddie vibrating next to him, fists clenching loosely by his sides, fidgeting in the passenger seat all the way. When they get inside the apartment Eddie goes straight for the kitchen sink, running himself a glass of water and downing it in one. Richie closes the door behind him warily.

“You okay, man?”

Eddie nods, opening his mouth as if to say something before shutting it again. Then, after a moment, “So- how _slow_ did you wanna take things?”

Richie gapes. He feels the breath knocked out of him in a rush of relief. “Jesus Christ, Eds. Don’t freak me out like that.”

“Huh?”

Richie laughs, crossing the living room to the kitchen, reaching where Eddie’s leaning back against the counter. Richie places a hand on the granite next to his hip. 

“You’re tense as fuck. I thought you’d had a horrible time.” 

Eddie blinks. “ _God_ , no. Rich. I- I couldn’t stop looking at you, is all.”

Richie frowns- because _that_ doesn’t sound right. _Richie’s_ the one that oggles. As far as he knows, that’s how this works. 

“Fuck, Richie,” Eddie continues when he says nothing, taking Richie’s free wrist and placing his hand on the counter the other side of him, caging himself in. “What don’t you get about this? I’m, like. _Extremely_ into you. You looked like a fucking- a sexy giraffe.”

Richie snorts. “Gee, thanks, Eds.”

“Shut up, I’m working on this,” Eddie says, shaking his head. “I mean- you looked _good_. All your fucking- legs and arms, and shit. God, Rich. Do you never just look in the mirror and think, like- I mean I wouldn’t know what to _do_ with myself if I was you.”

“You’ve got this entirely backwards, Eddie,” Richie says, cheeks hot. “I mean, you- in those fucking jeans.”

Eddie shakes his head. “Don’t.”

Richie smiles, head falling forwards to rest on Eddie’s shoulder. “I think we’ve both got some confidence shit to get through,” he says, muffled in the crook of Eddie’s neck. 

Eddie pushes him up, and Richie’s _overwhelmed_ by the fact that he’s on his _tip-toes_ , before Eddie kisses him, deep and slow. Richie leans down into it, crowding him into the kitchen counter, one hand coming up to tangle fingers in Eddie’s hair as their mouths open, pulling him as close as possible. Eddie palms at the front of Richie’s jeans eagerly, and Richie gasps into the kiss, rolling his hips forwards into Eddie’s hand.

“Shit, Rich-” Eddie moans. “Can I…?”

“Whatever it is, the answer’s yes,” Richie says. He chases Eddie’s lips as he starts to pull away, breathless, and then Eddie’s dropping to his knees in front of him and Richie thinks he might come just as the sight. “Oh, _Jesus_ , okay.”

“Okay?” Eddie says, hands already on his fly, those bambi eyes looking up at him through dark lashes. 

“Yeah, yes,” is all Richie can manage.

Eddie smiles, shifting his attention to taking Richie’s dick out of his pants, already completely hard and leaking. Eddie looks at it for a second like he’s forming some kind of plan, and Richie realises, then, that he’s probably never _had_ a cock in his mouth. _Fuck_ , if Richie isn’t honoured. 

Eddie wraps one hand around the base of Richie’s dick, tongue flicking out to lick at the head experimentally, before taking him all the way in, as far as he’ll fit. 

“Oh, fuck, _Eds_ ,” Richie groans, gripping the back of Eddie’s head instinctively. “Hey, go at your- _fuck-_ your own pace, dude.”

Eddie doesn’t seem to acknowledge the fact that Richie’s said anything, instead hollowing out his cheeks around Richie’s dick and sucking him down harder, moving off him just a little only to move back in to fit most of Richie’s length in his mouth. His tongue starts to work at the underside as he sucks, and Richie moans out a strangled imitation of Eddie’s name. It’s _definitely_ Eddie’s first time doing this- sloppy, lots of guesswork, a tiny bit too much teeth, zero finesse whatsoever. And yet, the way Eddie’s going at it like his life _depends_ on it, messy and enthusiastic, humming his own pleasure- Richie’s thinks it’s the best blowjob anyone’s _ever_ had. 

“Eds, Eds,” Richie gets out desperately. “You’re gonna make me come like that.”

Eddie pulls off him, a shining strand of saliva connecting his lips and Richie’s dick as he bats his lashes up at him, in what Richie is _pretty_ sure is an actualisation of his _hottest_ wet dreams. 

“Can I? Make you finish like this?” he says. 

“Jesus, fuck yeah, you can,” Richie says, because he’s not sure a freight train could stop him, actually. “I- do you want me to come in your mouth? I don’t wanna push you.”

Eddie looks like he considers this for a few seconds. _God_ , his hand is still working Richie’s dick slowly. Absentmindedly, like he’s not aware he’s doing it, like his hand just _belongs_ there, now. Then, he nods, face sure, and he’s taking Richie back into his mouth, all the way back, pulling off and sliding down faster than before. Richie resists with _all_ his fucking willpower the urge to grip Eddie’s hair harder, instead grasping the kitchen counter with his other hand, white-knuckled and close. Eddie says something around his dick that Richie absolutely can’t understand.

“What was that?” he gasps.

Eddie pulls off, just enough to say, “You can grab my hair. If you want.”

“Jesus Christ,” Richie says, and so he does. 

Eddie sinks back down, sighing around Richie’s dick, like he’s _happy_ _as_ _fuck_ to be there, and as Richie tugs on his hair _punishingly_ he reaches down between his own legs to touch the serious straining in his jeans, and, well. That just about does it for Richie.

He comes down Eddie’s throat with a wordless, drawn-out groan, fingertips pressing into the nape of his neck. Eddie stills for a a split second, before working Richie through it with his hand, swallowing around him until Richie’s pushing at his shoulders because he might fall the fuck over any second. Eddie sits back, wiping his mouth, spit and cum glistening on his lips. Richie _really_ wants to take a picture, but his hands wont stop shaking. 

“Was that alright?” Eddie says, voice wrecked. 

Richie laughs out a high, delirious noise. “Fuck, yeah, Eds. That’s the best goddamn blowjob I’ve ever had.”

Eddie flushes bright pink, standing up on wobbling legs. 

“You don’t have to say that,” he says, and Richie exhales heavily, like he could even _try_ to lie right now.

“Don’t get fuckin’ shy on me _now_ , Kaspbrak,” he says. “Come here.”

Eddie melts against him as Richie kisses him hard, tasting himself on his tongue. _Fuck_ , he’s in some kind of alternate reality. _High-five fifteen year old Trashmouth_ , he thinks. _Turns out you really didn’t peak in highschool._

Richie takes Eddie’s dick out of his jeans and jerks him off right there in his kitchen, watching his Adam’s apple bob as his head falls back against the cabinet, chest rising and falling as his little gasps turn into desperate moans. Eddie’s fingers grip the counter behind him with one hand, the other digging into Richie’s shoulder, his back curving in a beautiful arch as his thrusts into Richie’s fist. He comes shaking, Richie’s name on his lips, shivering and whining as Richie keeps going, kissing his exposed throat and licking the shell of his ear.

“Fuck, fuck, Rich,” he gasps. “I’m done, I’m done.” 

Richie tugs him slowly a couple more times, for good measure. Eddie swats him away as he catches his breath, slumping back and steadying himself. It takes a good few minutes for them both to come down, panting against each other, Richie pressing his sweaty forehead to Eddie’s. 

“You wanna stay?” he says, when he can.

“Yeah,” Eddie says. “But I think- I think I’ll go.”

Richie straightens up, frowning. 

“No, Rich,” Eddie says quickly, running a hand up and down Richie’s arm, fingers brushing over the crescent moons his nails left in his skin. “I do wanna stay. I _really_ do. But you were right. We should- y’know. Be normal about this. Be smart.”

Richie’s chest loosens. Even if his heart drops with it, a bit. 

“I think we’re both overdue some smart,” he says, and Eddie laughs. “Stay soon, though? Like, maybe once a week?”

“Once a week sounds good,” Eddie says. He presses a kiss to Richie’s lips, chaste, sweeter than Richie thinks he can handle right now. “Once a week sounds smart.”


End file.
